Everyone enjoys receiving a bouquet of fresh flowers, but how often do we consider their finer points and most intimate details? In her massive floral oil paintings, Ukrainian artist Ira Volkova makes it easier to study the delicate structures of petals and makes her paintings look like gigantic, real-life flowers. She masterfully captures a variety of pastel-colored blossoms and this week, she shares a dose of floral art for you to get inspired by her work.
Ira Volkova - A Queen of Oil Floral Paintings
Floral painter, Ira Volkova, is well-known for her hyper-realistic yet ethereal paintings of pink peonies, with the occasional birds and female figures in her pieces. Utilizing a combination of acrylic and oil paint, Ira Volkova paints in thin layers with great precision and attention to detail. The final result is beautiful compositions that can capture the natural calm beauty of her flowers.
With over twenty years of creative experience, in recent years, focusing on the topic of floristics, the artist creates astonishing large-scale oil paintings of different kinds of flowers, but you can notice her favorite flower if you visit her Instagram. Ira could be known as the queen of peony paintings because they're just too good to be true.
For a little more background, the artist was born in a small town in the south of Ukraine. As a child, Ira says she can confidently say that her childhood was happy and bright. It seems to her that during that period of her life, she accumulated so much sunlight which nowadays is reflected in all her paintings and her work in general.
Ira also mentions that she has been drawing for as long as she can remember. It was enough for her parents to give her a sheet of paper and pencils, leaving her imagination run wild and remain busy for several hours. Therefore, she had no difficulties with choosing a profession; from early childhood, Ira firmly knew that she would be an artist.
Packing a painting 'Pink Princess' by Ira Volkova:
She says:
"I’m inspired by nature in its endless variety. Even the most common object changes when you try to draw it. I love the large format of canvases. They allow people to show much more than they are used to seeing. On my canvases, a whole macrocosm of petals, the play of light and shadows, and sun glare are deployed."
Photography as Part of Her Inspiration to Paint
Other than being an artist, Ira also loves photography a lot. For her, photography is a good and necessary tool in the hands of a modern artist, which is the best hobby for the soul. Volkova shares that she has always tried to hide her efforts and wished her works to have the light joyousness of springtime, which never lets anyone suspect the labor it has cost her. For her, photography is also a way to get inspired for her future creations.
When she goes out to the fields and finds flowers or plants of interest, there's no better way of creating a memory of those flowers for future paintings than by photographing them.
More About Ira Volkova
Ira Volkova is a fine art graduate of the Kharkiv Art College and the Kyiv National Academy of Fine Arts, and currently lives and works in Kyiv, Ukraine. Her paintings can be found in notable public and private collections, including the collection of several Presidential Administration dignitaries during their official visits to Ukraine, and the collections of several Ukrainian celebrities.
If you have a keen eye for floral art and want to feature a spectacular floral oil painting at home, visit Singulart's website to see which paintings are available.
