KRISTINA SMORODOVA

oil painter with more than 1000 paintings created and more than 11 solo exhibitions held.

Biography

Kristina Smorodova was born on April 15, 1978 in Kirovsk, Murmansk region, Russia.

In 1992 she moved to Petrozavodsk, Karelia.
In 1997 she graduated from Petrozavodsk State University with a degree in primary education.
In 2002 she graduated from the Karelian State Pedagogical Academy with a degree of a biology teacher.
She worked as a methodologist, sales manager, advertising designer.

Kristina discovered oil painting in 2010 in the Tengiz Gigolashvilis's studio. A year later she bought an easel, and after some time picked a palette knife as the main painting tool. This is how her journey as an artist began.

Over the last 10 years more than a 1000 paintings have been created.

Exhibitions

Gallery "Doll's House"
2016, 21 paintings

"The element of oil"

"Familiar streets"

"Lottery 2020"

"The road"

"Seasons"

National Library of the Karelia
2020, 84 paintings

National Library of the Karelia
2021, 37 paintings

Käytävä Galleria, Hyvinkää
2023, 68 paintings

Petrozavodsk History Museum
2018, 25 paintings

"Large format dreams"

National Library of the Karelia
2023, 44 paintings

"A Mosaic of Experiences"

Käytävä Galleria, Hyvinkää
2024, 60 paintings

"Palette"

Russian Centre for Science and Culture
2025, 16 paintings

Exhibition "The element of oil"

2016, 21 paintings, art gallery "Doll's House", Russia

“The element is a natural phenomenon, an unrestrained force. My element is oil. It is the source of my energy. When I create, I empty myself, exhaust myself utterly, but every time I finish a painting, I feel how a surge of strength coming. I want to plunge again and again into this cycle."

Exhibition "Familiar streets"

2018, 25 paintings, Museum of Industrial History of Petrozavodsk
2019, 24 paintings, National Library of the Republic of Karelia

"This is the exhibition about the city, about its surroundings, about the streets, squares, fountains and street lights of Petrozavodsk. About me. About the moments that I spend in contemplation of life. About loyal friends. Walking with the dog provides an opportunity to observe, notice how the world is changing and how we change with it. About the beauty in the ordinary. About how fragile life is. About emotions, about the moments we want to keep in our memory."

Exhibition "Lottery 2020"

2020, 84 paintings, National Library of the Republic of Karelia

"Since June 2018, on a monthly basic, I give away paintings as gifts. The lottery was held online. Each month I chose a winner and then I met them to give a painting. Year 2020, however, was different. Meetings were cancelled and as a result I kept all the paintings for that year, so I decided to hold an exhibition before distributing the gifts."

Exhibition "The road"

2021, 37 paintings, National Library of the Republic of Karelia

"How to understand where our own road leads? Up or down? The road is always fascinating. This is a movement. It is knowledge - questions that you ask yourself, that life asks you. For the 10 years my life has been filled with oil. Oil became a part of me, oil paint allows me to stop, to preserve a moment. At the same time, I wish my paintings would come alive and would always provide a continuous story. 37 paintings of the choice, direction and understanding of my own oil universe."

Exhibition "Large Format Dreams"

2023, 44 paintings, National Library of the Republic of Karelia
2024, 83 paintings, Social and Cultural Youth Centre of Sortavala

"This project has been going for exactly five years. Every month one of the members of my online community on vk.com got a painting through the giveaway. There were active and inspiring discussions in comments section where people suggested ideas for the new paintings. The most active commentator with the most interesting suggestion was granted a prize - their idea painted on the canvas! The project motivated me to develop new skills in oil painting. Because of it, I experienced new materials and techniques and, most importantly, I met new people. The project taught me to listen and to understand. Thank you for contributing and sharing your dreams and values. The ideas dearest to me out of the ones I painted for the giveaways, I then used again on bigger canvas. This is how this exhibition came in existence. The collection about dreams and wishes which came true. About colorful future and wonderful now" - tells Kristina.

Exhibition "Seasons"

2023, 68 paintings, Käytävä Galleria, Hyvinkää, Finland

"Vuodenajat (eng. Seasons) is Kristina Smorodova's first solo exhibition held in Finland. The exhibition contains 68 oil paintings of Finland's rich and beautiful nature. Smorodova has painted all of them in Hyvinkää and its neighboring municipalities using two oil painting methods. The first one is plein air, which means creating a painting from start to finish outdoors. In addition to plein air, Smorodova's paintings represent alla prima pieces, which in turn means that the artist has completed paintings in a one session. During the exhibition visitors also could take a peek into the process of creation a painting and the atmosphere that prevailed at the time the paintings were created by watching videos.

There is one of them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHqLaD3NoZw&t=6s

Exhibition "A Mosaic of Experiences"

2024, 60 paintings, Käytävä Galleria, Hyvinkää, Finland

Why do artists paint? Every day something happens around us. Some people can talk for hours about the beautiful sunset they watched, some compose poems, some bake buns following grandma's recipe, and some devote themselves to collecting and preserving a herbarium. An artist is a person who has a need to express what matters to them via painting on a canvas. Kristina paint in order to imprint and share her emotions, and to receive a feedback. We all are transforming and the only way to learn yourself is to exchange energy and opinions with the others. Just like assembling pieces in a puzzle, this exhibition has come together by adding one impression to another. It shows places, people and thoughts that kept Kristina curious the whole previous year.

Exhibition "Palette"

2024, 10 paintings, Käytävä Galleria, Hyvinkää, Finland
2025, 16 paintings, Russian Centre for Science and Culture, Helsinki

The palette of every painting is unique, much like a fingerprint. In 2024 after completing each canvas, I began pressing the palette onto paper, and these impressions gradually formed a series of works that grew into the “Palette” exhibition. The palette is the tool where shades, tones, combinations and colour balance are born, an element just as essential as the canvas and the paints themselves. It reflects an artist’s individual style: the arrangement of colours and the choices made reveal the creator’s inner rhythm. Every colour carries its own emotions, thoughts and memories. “Palette” is a contemplation on colour, a collection of visual symbols that express what each shade has meant to me at different moments in time, explains Kristina.

"Alla Prima" is a painting technique that allows you to finish a painting in one session. It's also Kristina's painting technique. Paint is applied wet on wet without letting the previous layers dry. In Italian, the term "alla prima" means "at first attempt". This made it popular with the painters, as they were able to capture the fleeting light and color of the environment more easily.

ALLA PRIMA

Kristina on social media