Cactus Anton and fishing

Tania Stupnikova
Cactus Anton and fishing
Mixed media (acrylic, watercolor pencils) on canvas
65×85 cm
2022
Košice, Slovakia
Price: 490 EUR

They say that portrait artists always paint themselves – no matter who they paint. The artist’s features can always be found in the faces he paints.
I think you can also find me in each of my works.
Now I live in a beautiful country where people are very kind and pleasant. The ecology here is wonderful, we settled in perfectly. We can say that we live better than before the war – in fact, like in a resort.
But I still feel like a stranger – wrong, clumsy, illogical…. I don’t always understand my own feelings and I don’t really know what to do with it.
I think this is how the hero of my last painting feels. It is in a beautiful, magical place. But that is not his world, and he is superfluous in it. He is redundant for now, because he is learning. And everything will definitely work out for him.
And the cactus, I think, symbolizes a piece of home, our own world, that we carry with us. And it actually exists, it’s my daughter’s cactus. And she actually calls him Anton. ))))