Tree of Life Painting

nspiration comes from different corners of the world and different corners of the heart, everyday occurrences and hourly influences, formal education and happenstance. Ability is trained or inbred... but without a vast exposure to the world at large, ability cannot always translate to forceful, lasting, evocative art. Viviana Svidler began life in the jewel of a city called Buenos Aires (in Argentina). The vibrancy of this city with its far-flung influences exposed the artist to myriad different cultures, styles, and ways of life. At an early age she showed tremendous artistic ability, which she channeled into her work as an architect. Upon her family's immigration to the United States, art played second fiddle to starting a new life in middle age with four children to care-for and a career to begin, once again. But art for the sake of art was something that as an artist she could not avoid. When her first daughter moved out, she took advantage of becoming an empty-nester and built a home studio out of her daughter's old bedroom. (Much to the chagrin of her child, but far for the better of the expression of a caged artist). With scraps of free time shaved from here and stolen from there, the architect/artist began, once again, to explore different concepts as they applied to clay, as opposed to building beams and studs. Spatial relations, depth, light... as observed and not lived in, became the focus