The Lyrical Tatyana Palchuk – by A. M. Kadinopoulou, 2025

In a well-lit space, overlooking a garden in Riga near the Baltic Sea, lies the studio of undoubtedly one of the finest visual artists of our generation. Tatyana Palchuk is an award-winning painter, known for her oils on linen in a New Renaissance approach. Influenced by the Dutch, French and Italian Masters living between 1450-1650, Palchuk employs a realistic approach in her work, embracing styles ranging from Rococo to hyper-realism and trompe l’oeil (optical illusions). Few contemporary painters demonstrate such long-term commitment and focus to their work.

Born in Riga, the historical capital of Latvia in 1954, Palchuk has produced over 300 artworks in her career, living most of her life in this cultural center on the River Daugava, which is home to many museums, art nouveau architecture and a medieval Old Town. The aesthetic timelessness of these classical surroundings features strongly in her work, uniquely endowing it with a sense of classical antiquity mixed in with the present.

The contemporary New Renaissance Master is an accomplished figurative painter, often depicting solo or groups of musicians. The 2019 ‘Anthem of Joy (Allusions to Beethoven’s music)’, as well as ‘Marine Band’ completed in 2013, allude strongly to Jean-Antoine Watteau’s theatrical performance settings, colorful and vividly engaging, filled with movement and having a seemingly informal structure. Her compositions create a suspenseful balance through asymmetrical elements and confess a genuine expertise in the manipulation of space, colour and perspective.

In her ‘Playing Angels’ series created during 2015-16, we see evidence of her relationship with the divine. Adolescent musicians and singers are set on a plain golden background, in the manner of classical orthodox hagiography. Elevated as such to connote to saints or angels, they seem to be performing from a high gallery inside a church. Their expressions are serene, caught in a moment of pure appreciation and connection to something greater. Long drapes, animals and instruments complete the symbolic narratives.

Palchuk is an exquisite still-life painter, having created multiple such series, such as ‘Still-Life with Nautilus Pompillus’ in 2017, ‘Rainbow’ in 2018, and ’Small Is Beautiful’ in 2024. Also known as “nature morte” painting, her still-life works are much more than harmonious compositions of inanimate and lifeless objects. Infused with life, Palchuk manifests small worlds of rippling activity. For all the detail and vibrant colours she uses, her paintings reflect a minimal elegance and grace in both subject matter and form, able to instill the ‘lyrical’ into the ‘ordinary’.

Butterflies, birds, cats and insects go about their business, in slightly surreal depictions that create a dreamlike background to a scene being carried out, which we can’t look away from. On a painter’s workbench floating in space, ‘Still-Life with White Cat’, 2024, portrays a sleeping feline unaware of the small birds taking over the brushes and colorful palette. This division, highlighted in the contrast of the spotlit setup, is symbolic of the artist’s active conscious creativity while the subconscious mind dreams.

Her bright and tidy studio space is lined with books and beautiful natural or man-made artifacts set up on various surfaces in neat little displays, as a visual reference for her work. The used yet polished instruments for painting, the diligent draughtsmanship and studies of half-finished works in progress around the room, all admit to a disciplined structure and an intentional reverence for an artistic practice infused with deep purpose. Palchuk is known for not attending parties, events and exhibitions, choosing what she calls ‘the secluded life of the artist’.

She reflects on the difficult journey in becoming an established female artist, having no family connection to the Arts and losing her father at an early age. Resilient and headstrong, she enrolled at Rozentals Art School (1967-73) without informing her mother, and became a leading figure in the Baltic region, studying under professors such as academic Eduards Kalniņš. This mentorship shaped her confidence as an emerging professional in her field and proved invaluable to her artistic growth. Notable figures such as Imants Vecozols, Pēteris Postažs, Boriss Bērziņš and Edgars Iltners were among her teachers.

During her peak creative years, Palchuk had many successes in international competitions and the art market (i.e. being in the Top 15, at Ravenel Auction House and Hessinks). Recently in February 2024, she won Artist of the Year, by the Circle Foundation for the Arts. In 2022 she was certified by the Museum of The Americas, Miami, while in 2019, she won the Woman Art Award at Balvu un Piedalīsies.

Her 2022 ‘Night still-life with Butterflies’ is a masterpiece of texture, light and atmosphere. Monarch butterflies fly above an arrangement of shells, copper vessels, fruit and other objects set on a table in a dimly lit space. Nothing is dark about this picture. Unaffected by modern trends, Palchuk depicts human harmony and addresses the balance and wonder of the Natural world. Her work reflects a calm positivity, a sense of joyous celebration and creative industry. The viewer becomes part of an intimate setting in which worlds are momentarily layered upon each other. Momentarily infinite.

One of her favorite past-times is visiting European culture centers, galleries and museums in which she finds inspiration in treasured artworks, such as 15th century French Illuminated Manuscripts.Her work has been auctioned and exhibited in twenty-four countries, including the United States, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Germany, Taiwan and the Czech Republic. Her paintings are part of multiple collections, including the repositories of the Russian Art Union and Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation.

Inspired by her travels, it becomes evident by viewing her landscapes that Tatyana Palchuk loves nature. In her 2023 painting ‘Golden Leaf Fall’, a flock of small birds fly through a gust of falling autumnal leaves in a yellow field. The whole effect is melodious, with elements that border on the abstract. Set against a cloudy sky on a bright day, each leaf and bird is perfectly described and in place, like notes on sheet music. Palchuk employs a highly contrasted diagonal composition of light, guiding the viewer’s gaze and generating a feeling of drama and open space. Her works are a visual manifestation within which, the golden age of painting meets the present.