About Anna Brazhnikova

I still remember when I was four, I painted a picture for my beloved mother and gave it to her as a present. It was a trivial and unremarkable child's drawing, in timid and sweeping strokes of which, the naivety and sincerity of a little girl was clearly read. In a word, it was a usual drawing, such as the thousands of those that daughters give their mothers. Of course, it could be confused with a masterpiece that came out of the color pencils of a conceptual and quite adult artist, but this is just a matter of perception.

My mother gently looked at the drawing and said: "In my opinion, the circle of choice of professions for Annushka has just clearly narrowed by one." Mom was as always right: I became a banker, but the fine arts took another honorable niche in my life and became my favorite hobby.

Scientists are still struggling with the question: "When did Mozart become a Mozart?" For me, perhaps, it is just as difficult to answer this question, as the one when I discovered the artistic talent in myself. They say that one's inherent talent can be seen most vividly before twelve years old. My own, apparently, was napping up sweetly till this age and, risking of never being detected, became actively manifested immediately after I crossed the twelve-years boundary.

The very first few months that I spent in my first art study group, rather were a durability test: each and every lesson we used to cross-hatch the paper with lines of different density and pencil pressure. On the rib of my right hand appeared an indelible slate-colored strip. Perhaps, at that time it seemed to me the only visible result that I got. My wise mother was also concerned with the monotony of the "gray band" in my life, even though it was perfectly shaded. I was transferred to an art school, where I impressed the teacher with "a very cultural stroke" as he remarked. Fortunately, at the same time, the colors burst onto my life. First it was watercolor, and then oils. First, I painted the sheets of whatman and only then thoroughly primed canvases. My first masterpieces I self-critically tore up to pieces and threw them away. The sketches and ready-made pictures could not find a satisfactory response in my mind and were doomed to rest forever in a completely non-recoverable state somewhere at the bottom of the trash bin. Surprisingly, the work, time and talent that I invested in my paintings, very rarely outweighed the fleeting "it’s a no" and the subsequent flash-like sound of the divergent fibers of the paper. I was the only critic. Strict and binary in my verdicts. Mom stopped me, when she gave me a box and asked to put there all the paintings that had received from me a stamp about uselessness. "You will certainly become a great artist and I will make a fortune by selling them!" - Mom remarked enthusiastically. As of today, she is the owner of the most extensive collection of my works, although the proverbial box was forgotten a long time ago.