Meet Tatyana Grechina | Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Tatyana Grechina and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Tatyana, what led you to pursuing a creative path professionally?
I’ve been drawing and painting ever since I was a child, and as I got older it became ingrained as part of my identity. Initially, there was a lot of ego involved for me — I needed to be the best painter, the best artist among my peers, draw the best face I could. However, as my practice developed and I matured, I realized that it’s not about being the best, or even painting something to look JUST like your reference. It’s about being honest to yourself and honoring the channel of creative expression. It became about collaboration and co-creation, and about bringing other people into the magical world of the arts.

Recently, I decided to follow my path in the arts to a place physically rich with artists and culture — so I moved to NYC for a year. I’m constantly in awe of the daily theater unfolding all around us.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I graduated from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia with a BFA in Painting and Drawing, and since then I’ve held numerous jobs both in and out of creative fields. Today, I’m lucky to be working with several wonderful clients for whom I provide various visual marketing services, blending my love for writing with my passion for visual construction. Alongside these “day jobs,” I’m consistently in my studio painting and working on new bodies of work.

In addition to painting, a large part of my studio practice includes collaboration. This takes form in creative direction of editorial-style photoshoots with other artists, photographers, stylists and models. I frequently model as well, giving the work an autobiographical take. From these photos, I make prints and cut them up by hand into collages from which I then create paintings. I like to paint from my own work because it feels like a repurposing and continuation of the life put into one part of the process. I love taking things as far as they will go, and having a hand in everything. Often, I also create the garments worn in these shoots, and always create the sets or alter the location based on my vision’s needs.

I’d say my approach to art-making rests a bit in organized chaos. I think we need a space to get messy, throw a bunch of fabrics and paint around and roll around in it. Then we clean it all up and look at what we’ve done, and where we can take that.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Answering this question from my home base of Longmont, Colorado, I’d absolutely take them to my special spot at McIntosh Lake. While the Flatirons in Boulder are beautiful in an overpowering way, for me personally the open expansiveness where water meets the sky is where it’s at.

I love seeing the snow-capped mountains all around me, and my favorite thing to do is nestle into the grass and lose myself in a book or my sketchbook. With so much going on in my head all the time, and so much radiating from my crown chakra with creativity and connectivity, it feels so grounding to lay in the grass, feeling the earth beneath my whole body.

After that, I’d head off to one of my favorite taco spots downtown — Jefe’s! We can have some margs and walk around Longmont’s quaint downtown. Then we could drive to Boulder and enjoy the view as the mountains get closer and closer -feeling the space all around us closing in as we dive into the valley.

Simply because I love food, I’d take them to Avanti Food and Beverage in Boulder, a collective of restaurants in a launching-pad hub of sorts, where the snacks are amazing and the rooftop view is even better.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I’d love to dedicate this Shoutout to everyone who has believed in me and supported my talents and crazy ideas!

Website: tatyfairy.com

Instagram: instagram.com/tatyfairy

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tatyana-grechina/

Image Credits
Groupings of images shot by Jeff Goldberg