Renata Tumarova

Trained in the classical academic tradition of Russian art, Tumarova gradually developed an increasingly free and intuitive visual language over the course of her artistic career. The technical rigor of her early training remains consistently present, yet it recedes behind an open, process-driven approach to color, composition, and subject matter. In place of detailed preparatory drawings, she works directly on the canvas, lending her paintings a sense of spontaneity, dynamism, and strong painterly presence.

In terms of subject matter, Tumarova often focuses on scenes in and around water: children, adolescents, and adults who move playfully and fluidly through the pictorial space, appearing almost weightless. These figures are deliberately rendered as anonymous, rarely shown frontally, and not individualized. For that very reason, they function less as portraits than as stand-ins for a shared, collective experience. In Tumarova’s work, the human body becomes a vehicle for movement, rhythm, and spatial energy – rather than a bearer of individual psychology.

Central to the impact of her paintings is the distinctive relationship between figure, space, and viewer. Tumarova partially dissolves classical points of orientation such as horizon lines or clearly defined spatial depth – and often situates the viewer within the scene itself. The pictorial space is not observed from a distance but experienced physically: as immersion, resonance, and movement. This immersive quality is further intensified by her use of light reflections, splashes, dabs of color, and painterly concentrations that extend beyond the depicted scene and seemingly expand the spatial field.

2011
Dorothea Konwiarz Prize
Nominated for the Lucas Cranach Prize 2011, Kronach (K)

2010
Nominated for the Eberhard Dietzsch Prize for Painting, Gera (K)

2007/08
Dorothea Konwiarz Fellowship, Berlin

2006 – 2007
Studied Fine Art Painting under Prof. Valerie Favrè, Berlin University of the Arts (UdK), Berlin

2002 – 2006
Studied Fine Art Painting under Prof. K.H. Hödicke, Berlin University of the Arts (UdK), Berlin

1997 – 2001
Studied painting at the Academy of Arts, St. Petersburg, Russia

1979
Born in St. Petersburg, Russia

Lives and works in Berlin, Germany.