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Nina Margaieva was born in 1984. In 2007, she graduated from the Belarusian State University of Culture and Arts, specializing in folk crafts (ceramics).
Since 1997, when she was still a teenager, Nina had been actively participating in art exhibitions and plein airs.
Let’s recall some of her early exhibitions where Nina’s works were shown: “Artsession” (2004, 2005), “Along the Paths of Napoleon Orda” (2007), and “Memory of Dabraulyany” (2008). In 2007, the Vankovich House-Museum hosted her personal exhibition together with Vera Kauzanovich, titled “Diary.”
Artist Nadzeya Sayapina has known Nina since their student years. The two were friends, exchanged artistic experiences and ideas, and often did photoshoots for each other.
“At that time, I had just entered the University of Culture, and Nina was about to graduate. We had the same watercolor painting teacher, who also led a creative group with students, and we were both part of it.
That’s why there were many shared exhibitions and plein airs, which I remember very warmly and romantically. Even when we lived in very uncomfortable, almost spartan conditions during those plein airs, Nina would get up at dawn to find a place to do yoga,” recalls Nina’s friend Nadzeya Sayapina.
Sayapina adds that for a long time after graduation, she and Nina lost touch, but fate brought them together again later.
“It happened that in 2016 we met again in Alyaksei Luneu’s studio, as part of the Gallery Ŭ project. Alyaksei suggested a method of working with diaries, texts, and very personal materials — we exchanged our written notes created during the days in the workshop and reworked them.
It turned out to be a very interesting and unusual experience of interaction and artistic method — and considering our shared past, the works we made were deeply personal,” says artist Nadzeya Sayapina.
Nina has pedagogical talents and always wanted to work with children. In Minsk, she founded the children’s art studio PLOT.
As Nina herself explained, the studio was named after the only piece of furniture she had at the start — a huge table. Later, she rented a studio and for seven years worked in Minsk with both children and adults.
“7 years, 7 exhibitions, 5 camps, 3 plein airs, over 150 children, 200 video clips, countless classes, important conversations, losses and victories, incredible drawings, hikes, excursions, escapes, jokes, golden dust,” she wrote in summer 2022 about saying goodbye to PLOT.
After the 2020 presidential elections, Nina Margaieva signed the “Open Letter of Cultural and Artistic Figures Against Violence and Electoral Fraud.”
Pressure began to mount on her, and in June 2022, Nina was forced to leave Belarus with her son Miron and her spaniel, nicknamed Chloe.
In October 2022, in Warsaw, Nina launched a new project called Glieba. Classes with children were held at the Museum of Free Belarus in Warsaw.
“I really hope that over time I will be able to unite artists who are still in Belarus with those who were forced to leave, because our Glieba still exists within us,” Nina wrote about her new project.
Artist Lera Lazuk is convinced that Nina Margaieva’s works have everything: composition, color, plasticity, and, most importantly, image and their own resonance.
“Each painting subtly shimmers with mood and emotion, conveyed solely through visual means. We perceive the feelings of a work precisely through the chosen color, the form and plasticity, the arrangement of objects in the format, the texture. Her works, like all true art, exist beyond any discourse of contemporaneity, beyond fashion and trends. They will always be valuable,” Lazuk emphasizes.
A colleague and friend of Nina Margaieva, who gave the pseudonym Antos Rudy, notes that Nina embodies many contradictions:
“She appears fragile, but try to make her deviate from her chosen path! Outwardly restrained, yet so passionate in her art! Sometimes she looks with huge eyes from under her brow, like a bewildered gnome, and when you approach — she’s a steel swan,” says Antos Rudy.
For Antos, Nina’s work is reminiscent of poetry — in its highest degree of imagery and conciseness. He calls her creations “painting-poems.”
“Nina’s pictorial poetry unites opposites. It reminds me, in form, of Chagall’s biblical cycles, as if a child’s babble proclaims the monumentality of the First Creator’s table. What touches me most is the execution. Behind the lightness of touch (as if a little bird pecked at the sand) stands the precision of a sniper with Van Gogh’s fire. Such poignancy and sharpness of touch, concentration, and energy… It is a touching stroke that becomes imperceptible, like a good singer’s voice — light, seemingly careless, so as not to draw attention to the artistry itself and not distract the viewer from how the trees experience light, which is, in fact, life itself,” reflects Antos Rudy.
The artist often paints trees. But these are not just trees — they are human figures reaching toward each other, defending themselves, glowing, notes Antos Rudy. Behind each stands a particular experience of the artist; they are developed as images, as characters in a play, he adds.
“The artist’s most important characters are color and light. Color, like heavenly fire, like love, falls from above and connects trees, cars, stone sarcophagi, people into a dance. Trees, like torches of love tinged with red, sway in the midst of a cobalt-blue autumn courtyard of solitude. Each story has its own color resonance. Through the fusion of touch, dramatic imagery, color, and light, that love and clarity is achieved — it requires no words. This is art. And Nina created this fairy tale,” Antos Rudy poetically expresses his feelings about Margaieva’s works.
In January 2023, in Warsaw, Nina was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The disease is progressive.
The Belarusian Council of Culture, as well as colleagues and friends, announced a Week of Solidarity with the artist Nina Margaieva, alongside a fundraiser for her treatment and support.
Nadzeya Sayapina says she perceives Nina Margaieva as a very strong, profound, and humane person, as a highly talented and productive artist, and as an exceptional teacher:
“I react very strongly to the current condition of dear Nina, because I know firsthand what ALS is — my mother suffered from it, and I cared for her child. That’s why I sincerely ask you to help in any way you can; it is extremely necessary and important!” — Nadzeya appeals.
On October 15, the Museum of Free Belarus in Warsaw will host the opening of a major solo exhibition of Nina Margaieva’s works. After the exhibition, some of the pieces will be available for purchase.
Original article: svaboda.org
