Asya Katina, artist

Love of painting came to me suddenly, it was persistent and … rather late.

I was fifty at that time - already a wife, a mother, a grandmother and an executive.

What shall I do? – I want to paint! Am I able to? My milieu are  professionals – musicians, artists, actors, bibliographers, methodists, managers…

Will they be able to understand me? Will they laugh at me? Anyway, I can’t do anything about my character, my strong love of painting and curiosity.

I’m putting brush strokes on canvas fervently, temperamentally as if my brush is running somewhere, clearly and quickly reflecting my mood. I don’t have any definite ideas about what I am going to paint, nor do I have any previous sketches or underpaints of my future painting – just a clean canvas, oils and a brush. What is going to come out? – Nobody knows, even the author herself…

Her first personal exhibition, first admirers, first critics and fans seem to be far away in the past.

Now her works are well-known not only in Russia. Collectors from France, Britain, America, Singapore buy them for their collections…

The biggest collection of her works belongs to her son, Sergey Katin – composer, poet, producer, author of more than 100 popular songs – and to her granddaughter Lena Katina – a singer of the popular duo “t.A.t.U.” .

Asya Katina is retired now. She spent 36 years developing the net of cultural and educational institutions in her native Dolgoprudny – a small town near Moscow.

She has been given the titles of “honoured citizen” of her town, and Russian Federation’s honorary person of arts.