Artist Mayya Lobova has been Inspired by Guyana and it shows in the tribute she has done to the country she lived in for some 4 years, now on display at the National Gallery, Castellani House.
Lobova’s 33 paintings show her artist’s enthusiastic response to the flora, fauna and landscape of Guyana that she discovered for the first time in beginning work as a translator/interpreter stationed in the Berbice River area of Region 10.
According to a press release from the National Gallery, Lobova was born in St Petersburg, Russia to parents who were artists. She earned a degree in African studies before coming to Guyana in 2006 for 2 years, followed by a second two year period to the present, which saw her beginning her painting of forest animals, large and small, plant life, landscapes and symbolic ‘tributes’ to persons and places.
Paintings range from a black and yellow series including renderings of the ‘Anaconda and Harpy Eagle’, ‘Armadillos in the Grass’, Fern Trees’ and ‘Forest Floor’, and later paintings in a wider palette including a plumed rooster ‘Calling for Morning’, a tribute to South America, ‘Flowers of the Atacama’, landscape renderings of the Kanuku mountains, and, in a technique of paint applied in dots of colour, views of Kaieteur Falls, the Essequibo forests and Linden (‘On the Way to Linden’), as well as several of animals. Other works include the dreaming figure ‘The Beautiful Guyana’, and her most recent ‘Jungle Portraits’, of a Jaguar and Eagle, and the Howler and Squirrel Monkeys.
The exhibition is open to the public and will continue until October 27. Admission is free and gallery hours are Monday to Friday from 10 am to 5 pm, and Saturdays from 2 to 6 pm; the gallery is closed on Sundays and holidays.
Lobova will give a talk and Power Point presentation on her work next Thursday at 5 pm at the National Gallery. The public is invited.
