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My First Solo Show

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My First Solo Show

October 7th, 2007 - Spencer, NC

Just an article in a local paper.

Tatyana Shurtz exhibit opens this Saturday

Tatyana Schurtz poses with two of her paintings that are displayed at the Art Station in Spencer. At left-a painting of her friend Marina Konovalova-Bare. At right-"Butterfly." Photo by Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.

By Katie Scarvey

Salisbury Post

"I'm going to do this for the rest of my life."

That's what Tatyana Shurtz told herself after completing her first painting last year.

And by April of this year, Tatyana — who is originally from St. Petersburg, Russia — took the bold step of quitting her job in Concord as a graphic designer and becoming a full-time artist.

She's preparing to have her first exhibit at the Art Station in Spencer, with an opening reception scheduled for 5:30 p.m. this Saturday, Sept. 15.

Gallery owner Sara Gettys is impressed by Tatyana's talent.

"For her to only be painting a couple years, she's just exceptional," Sara says. "She's amazingly talented."

Tatyana came to the United States nine years ago. She'd already been to Africa and Europe, and she decided to visit the U.S. because she was "just curious," she says. She stayed with her pen pal from Texas.

After she arrived, she found she didn't want to go home.

"I just loved the country so much — I felt like I belonged here," she said.

She never left. She did the paperwork necessary to stay, and ended up heading north, living in New Jersey and New York City. She spent four months teaching herself how to be a graphic artist and then found a job working for a company with an office in the Empire State Building.

Eventually, she moved to Florida, which is where she met her husband. She was working in Jacksonville as a graphic designer and living in St. Augustine when they met through an internet dating service — match.com. If it wasn't love at first sight, it was close.

Patrick

"From the first meeting, we knew something would happen," she says.

Vernon Shurtz, who used to be in the Navy and who "chased Russians all over the world" in his job working with nuclear submarines, "finally caught one," says Tatyana, laughing.

They met in November and were engaged by January. They will celebrate their third anniversary next month. They've been living in Spencer for several years now.

Tatyana says that her decision to leave regular employment and focus her energies on her art was fully supported by her husband.

In fact, Vernon — who is a freelance digital 3-D animation artist — was the one who provided his wife the nudge she needed by giving her some brushes and paints for Christmas.

That was probably akin to giving Julia Child copper-bottomed pots and a set of wire whisks.

Feeling she had discovered her true calling, Tatyana never looked back.

As a subject, people are what interest her the most, Tatyana says. In particular, she loves capturing expressions.

She works with photos and says she typically takes several hundred to use as a reference.

One of the paintings in the show — "Butterfly" — features some children in a pumpkin patch. After she captured that scene with her camera in Mooresville, she knew she had to paint it.

Completing that painting took four months, but she's gotten much faster, she says.

Tatyana has gotten some valuable support from the artist Marina Konovalova-Bare, also an oil painter originally from St. Petersburg, Russia.

Red Camellia

The two have become good friends, and Marina has been a valuable technical advisor for Tatyana, teaching her how to mix paints, among other things.

Tatyana loves bright, vivid colors and likes to create something that "jumps on you and sticks to your chest," she says.

Tatyana has painted a fantastical portrait of her friend Marina, wreathed in a crown of leaves and holding a luminous fairy.

"That's how I see her," Tatyana says. "She's a magical person. She has a gift on the tip of her brush. She can do the whole world with it."

Tatyana says she splits her energy between her husband, renovating their house, and taking care of their five animals. She says, however, that she usually neglects "everything but the painting."

Sometimes she finds it difficult to pull herself away, painting 16-18 hours some days.

Other times, "the muse doesn't come," she says.

"But if it's there, there's no stopping."

Fortunately, as an artist himself, her husband understands her passion.

"He's the same way," she says, adding that she occasionally has to gently remind him at 1 a.m. that it's time to hang it up for the day.

Tatyana works primarily in oils. She says she tried watercolor but found it wasn't her medium.

Although she loves painting people most of all, she likes nature as well. She says she hates doing still lifes, but does them because she likes to be challenged.

Country Road

Tatyana does portrait commissions. For more information, call her at 704-637-7779. You can see more of her work on her Web site: www.tatyanashurtz.com.

The Art Station is located at 514 S. Salisbury Ave. in Spencer.

Contact Katie Scarvey at 704-797-4270 or kscarvey@salisburypost.

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