With “Splash” the Barbara von Stechow Gallery presents, for the first time, the paintings of Renata Tumarova in a solo exhibition. Her works explore freedom as a physical experience, a state of perception, and an aesthetic principle. Trained in the classical Russian art tradition, Tumarova developed an intuitive, process-oriented visual language that transitions from figurative representation to painterly dissolution. At the core of her work are dynamic, weightless bodies in and around water, which serve less as portraits of individual people and more as representatives of collective experiences. The artist deconstructs traditional perspectives, creating an immersive experience that physically involves the viewer in the pictorial space. Through the use of bold colors and fluid transitions between abstraction and figuration, a dynamic dialogue is established between the artwork and the viewer. Tumarova’s paintings are less about delivering a message and more an invitation to a personal, emotional experience of freedom within the image space.
Renata Tumarova was born in 1979 in St. Petersburg, Russia, and currently lives in Berlin. She studied painting at the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg and continued her education at the University of the Arts (UdK) in Berlin, where she studied with Prof. K.H. Hödicke and Prof. Valerie Favrè. Her accolades include the Dorothea Konwiarz Prize (2011), a nomination for the Lucas-Cranach Prize (2011), and the Dorothea Konwiarz Scholarship (2007/08). In addition, she was nominated for the Eberhard-Dietzsch Prize for Painting in 2010.
