Artios Gallery presents
Natalia Koren Kropf
The collection of paintings, drawings, printmaking, and sculpture
2010 - 2022
Copyright © 2023 Artios Gallery, LLC
All rights reserved
"Develop your senses, especially learn how to see. Realize that everything is connected to everything else."
- Leonardo da VinciForeword
Natalia Koren Kropf is a true internationalist. As an artist, embracing the lessons of the old world and marrying them to the new has made her art expression a true example of global interaction and understanding.
Born into a family of artists in St. Petersburg, Russia, Natalia’s journey to becoming an artist began at a very young age. A precocious passion for creating combined with her formal studies at the St.Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts was the perfect foundation for a young acolyte as herself. She was quick to absorb European cultural traditions and the Old Masters School of oil painting and master drawing she studies so diligently. Weekly visits to the treasures of the Hermitage further enhanced her curiosity. Fortunately, she was able to escape Russia with her family during the political crisis in 1991, exposing her to the heart of New York’s contemporary art scene. It is this meeting of two worlds that has produced the richness and universality art lovers everywhere can appreciate in her work.
The scope of Natalia’s artistic inspirations takes many forms, from her figurative ink and graphite drawings, mixed media, and gesture paintings, to her non-objective meticulous printmaking works and ner biomorphic sculptures. Nature, science music play an intrinsic part. Movement and light remain recurring themes in her artworks, which she refers to as visual poems. Whether she is giving a lyrical twist and turn to such works as Harmony, a bronze sculpture that takes its clues from the natural world and has a classical reference to Michelangelo’s Creation, to her monoprints on rice paper, there is an elegant transcendence at work. As a master yoga instructor, she has brought the best of holistic self-expression to her art as well as her unique method as a teacher of art.
A graduate of the Parsons School of Design, she has continued her independent studies at the School of Visual Arts, continuing to explore advanced printmaking techniques with master printers (silkscreen, lithography, intaglio on zinc and copper, viscosity printing, woodblock printing, digital imaging, artist’s book). Later on her love to form, gesture, and curvature was manifested in three-dimensional works. Starting with ceramics and transitioning to lost-wax bronze with technical support and production at the Art Students League of New York.
During the tumultuous years of the pandemic, she served as the President of the National Association of Women Artists, where she remains on the Board of Directors. She also is an Elected Member of the Allied Artists of America, the Art Students League of New York, Monotype Guild of New England. During that same period of isolation, she created a body of works, Inner Spaces, including several multimedia sculptures that explore the external emotional turbulence on the personal level, the unrest in society, and the inner harmony reining within the artist. This artist has enjoyed many national and international exhibitions and garnered awards in every medium she has mastered. Her work is represented in private collections in Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Greece, Cyprus, Finland, Japan, Lesotho, Argentina, and the United States.
By Sandra Bertrand.AboutNataliaKorenKropf
Natalia Koren Kropf is a classically trained, interdisciplinary award-winning artist who combines art and science in various studio media. She explores current topics of change in climate and society and the eternal themes of light and movement. Born and raised in St.Petersburg, Russia, into a family of artists, Natalia has studied at the St.Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts. Her formal studies started at age 11. During these forming years, she had absorbed the European cultural traditions and the Old Masters school of painting and drawing. The literary circles and scholars, the collection of the Hermitage, and other great museums also significantly influenced her upbringing. Her studies were interrupted by a political crisis in 1991. The family was able to escape to the United States. Coming to New York, she embraced its contemporary art scene. Natalia graduated from Parsons School of Design and was o ered a position as a drawing teacher there while independently studying at the School of Visual Arts and the Art Student League, experimenting with mixed media and printmaking.
Having her own family enriched Natalia's art journey. Initially, she opened her studio to friends and families of her children, and soon, the Koren Kropf Studio was opened for classes for the next 17 years. Natalia invented a unique method of working with small groups of students. She created a challenging curriculum for teens, many of whom got accepted into specialized high schools and, later, top colleges due to the superb quality of their art portfolios. Now her daughters study animation at the School of Visual Arts. Natasha was always drawn to the invisible world. She undertook a spiritual journey, which manifested in a shifting focus on ecology in her artworks, and two diplomas, one from the Kundalini Research Institute (KRI) as a yoga instructor and another from the International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT). Natalia has o ered classes at her creative studio to suit the students' individual goals, combining Yogic principles with self-expression in a holistic form of Art therapy.
In 2018 Natalia was elected as the President of the National Association of Women Artists (NAWA), the oldest American Art organization founded in 1889 by women artists. During the tumultuous years of the pandemic, she re-directed all operations online. She organized monthly virtual exhibitions, including the 131st Annual Members' Exhibition, and educational programs, such as Art in Conversation with Farrin and monthly members' zoom conferences Noon with NAWA. After her Presidential term, Natalia remains on the Board of Directors. The lockdown allowed Natalia to combine her presidential duties with prolific creativity in her studio. She started a new series, Inner Spaces, based on her experience of limited social interactions. The series includes largescale abstract drawings, paintings, and sculptures, two of which received merit awards in 2021-22. She continues to add sculptural forms to her works, depicting the interconnectedness and harmony of all the elements of life. Natalia is an avid supporter of a sustainable lifestyle and eco-clean art practice.
Trees/Nature
“Nature is always an inspiration. By closely studying the motion of the branches under the wind, a growing cycle of a plant or a tree, I record their curves and dynamic movement by drawing from observation. Then, using muscle memory, I repeat the process depicting just the trajectories of that movement, resulting in more abstract imagery.”
The Trees collection includes nine works in various media, from precise lines of intaglio prints to gestural brush and ink drawings to acrylic on canvas. As Natalia experimented with di erent styles and techniques, the trees transformed from realistic forms (A Quiet Hour or Old Apple Tree) to more abstract ones (Windy Day or Winter Forest). Yet, their unmistakable and majestic essence persists in every piece, a rming the artist’s enchantment with nature’s intricate forms, directing the hand and filling the image with the spirit of harmony and beauty.
Two earlier works, Sakura and Blooms and Snow, speak to this duality of harmony and beauty especially well. Both completed in 2012, these small-scale pieces are made using di erent media, yet they complement each other adroitly. The first, Sakura, is reminiscent of Japanese miniatures, with a subdued background and poetic undertones brightened by the tender pink blossoms. The second one, Blooms and Snow, is a whirlpool of emotions, with the dark tree trunk curving and bending under the wind and the negative space filled by the white of the snow and the pink of the abstracted flowers.
Natalia’s intuition, dictated by her knowledge and inspiration, is flawlessly executed in this collection, uniting the subject with the media exquisitely.
Budding Sakura
pastel, gouache on paper
12 x 12 inches, 2012
Blooms and Snow
monotype
12 x 12 inches, 2012
Winter Magic
acrylic on canvas
24 x 36 inches, 2010
Winter Forest
acrylic on canvas
24 x 36 inches, 2010
Windy Day
sumi ink on paper
14 x 11 inches, 2010
Sakura
sumi ink on paper
14 x 11 inches, 2010
Last Day of Summer
Dancers
“I discovered that all types of movement are interconnected. Let’s celebrate the interconnectedness.”
The artist’s Dancers collection honors the ancient tradition of human curiosity for and expression of movement. Akin to the cave drawings our ancestors left for future generations to read and revere, and like many artists before her, in this series, Natalia shows her fascination with the movement, its simultaneous elegance, and raw emotions. The dancers gather in a circle, performing a ritual dance, twirling and twisting their bodies in a beat to the inner rhythm of imperceptible music. The circle is not fortuitous. It manifests the connection between the beginning and the end, between the links in the chain of life. To the artist, everything in the world is interconnected.
Take, for example, Celebrate! – the silkscreen print created by the artist in 2012 and further edited in 2021. One can discern the multitude of dancing figures from several di erent cultures joining in the single act of movement, each having their own expression yet, captured in its wholeness. One line flows into the other, producing uninterruptedness and signifying interconnectedness.
This series was created during live drawing sessions, allowing the artist to observe the anatomy interacting with a choreography of a gesture. It is notoriously di cult to draw a moving figure. The artist works almost intuitively, catching the moment, a hint of a movement in a particular direction. Natalia’s Dancers series showcases her mastery in depicting the moving figure. It also reveals the artist’s enchantment with the poetry and music of a movement.
Narcissus
woodblock print
16 x 20 inches, 2012
Celebrate! silk screen print 16 x 20 inches, 2012
GeometryofMovement
infinity is great and endless, the emptiness is also vast, love’s everlasting, death - momentous, all roads lead us into dust. joy is enormous, silence - timeless time pressure’s constant, and, alas, we cannot comprehend the music, but we can hear it, so we dance.
© Natalia Koren Kropf, 2019“Artists, just like dancers, need to keep their form by practicing. Whether an artist creates figurative works or not, constant practice is a must. Thus, during the long hours of figure drawings, the momentum must have been sparkled, and the accumulated experiential knowledge took o and went in its own direction.
From quick gesture drawings in brush and ink and the fine graphite lines, there were emerging shapes upon shapes with the negative spaces between their limbs and torsos. A geometric grid transpired, indicating the model's range of motion, the gesture of an artist's hand, and the physicality of a fluid medium and soft tones of diluted ink. Later, these spontaneous drawings were carefully edited and collaged with contrasting handmade Japanese paper to enhance the angles and to add meaning to the character's mood.”
Ribbon Dance mixed media on paper 9 x 12 inches, 2012
mixed media on paper
16 x 20 inches, 2019
mixed media on paper
16 x 20 inches, 2019
PTSD mixed media on paper
20 x 16 inches, 2019
Deep Listening mixed media on paper 20 x 16 inches, 2019
Remembering Home mixed media on paper 16 x 20 inches, 2019
KnottedWebIntaglioSeries
Knotted Web intaglio print 15 x 16 inches, 2011
MusicalMovement
“As I work, I listen to classical music, and I am not only coexisting in the same sound universe with the great classical composers, I also take an emotional part in this journey and record the polyphonic dynamic visually. I choose the colors by association with the tempo and the parts of the symphonic structure. I imagine sound waves as cloud formations.”
Scherzo intaglio print
18 x 24 inches, 2018
Natalia’s Musical Movements series of mono prints is characterized by the intricate interlacing of lines and hues. The theme of interconnected lines builds on her previous body of works, distinguished by the attention to the flow of line movement. The prints in this series project the artist’s lyricism and creative visualization of various musical forms. Such titles as Andante, Allegro Vivace, or Symphony reveal a deep inner connection between the artist’s audiovisual imagination and perception of harmony. Natalia says, “I believe that the silent power of formal elements, such as color, lines, and movement, is capable of transforming the viewer into the realm of physical harmony, emotional balance and transcendental attunement.”
Dr. Dan Siegel of Momentous Institute states, “When we attune with others, we allow our own internal state to shift, to come to resonate with the inner world of another.” Such an attunement fosters the interconnectedness the artist feels is necessary to experience harmony, to bring one into balance with oneself and the surrounding world. This is precisely the e ect Natalia aims for in her Musical Movements series.
Rondo Vivace
intaglio print 18 x 24 inches, 2018 - 2020
Symphony intaglio print 18 x 24 inches, 2018 - 2020
Curvatures
“Every smooth movement creates a curvature in space, spiraling and winding, similar to the movement of a conductor’s baton. The curvatures may also appear as forms of their own.”
The Curvatures' collection represents a series of abstract works in which the artist conveys her vision of the world’s interconnectedness. Here, Natalia investigates the relationship between the lines, colors and textures, carefully constructing her compositions by allowing the materials to interact with one another. The artist’s intuitive choice of media encourages experimentation, which results in well-balanced and esthetically gratifying creations. Be it a fluid acrylic or paper pulp cast into relief, the lines guide the artist into their own space, forming an intricate landscape of artistic expression.
In Ancient Whispers I and Ancient Whispers II, Natalia uses terra-cotta pigment and cobalt to represent the earth and waterways of ancient trade routes. These compositions evoke the distant memories of the bygone Mediterranean civilizations, their struggles and explorations, their stories and legacies. As our society is built on those legacies, Natalia’s work is anchored in the creative heritage of great artists that come before, such as Katsushika Hokusai, whose influence in these compositions is felt strongly
Many Ways
Ancient Whispers 2 monotype print 12 x 12 inches, 2020
Ancient Whispers 3 monotype print 12 x 12 inches, 2020
Cobalt Voice
tempera on canvas
24 x 24 inches, 2019
Orange Helix
tempera on canvas
24 x 24 inches, 2019
RootsandCuts
Year Rings
encircled by the fibers’ spiral, enclosed by the bulky bark, the tree stem raises into dizzy realms, each year further from its birth; thus we entwined by our lives, are branching out further up, but core from roots to crown top is still the same all our lives, it’s harder to look back inside as season after season strides; but only clarity is wholeness, and only unity is peace.
© Natalia Koren Kropf 2021Making the parallels between the life of a tree and a human life led me to focus on the tree rings, showing not only the age of a cut tree but also serving as a record of climate change. The tree rings tell us a story of the preceding times in a particular geolocation. Under certain conditions, the petrified tree trunks become natural monuments to resilience and stamina.
I produced an interdisciplinary body of works, Roots and Cuts, including painting, sculpture, printmaking, poetry and artist talks devoted to tangible and transcendental qualities of the elements of life on earth as the relationship of the human footprint on natural ecosystems.”
Heritage
intaglio double print, chine-colle, collage
22 x 30 inches, 2010 -2012
Shrinking Lake intaglio print 14 x 11 inches, 2010 - 2022
BiomorphicSculpture
“Inspired by organic curvature and the ever-changing metamorphosis, the Biomorphic Sculptures are reminders of our belonging together as living organisms, of our placement on the planet and in the universe. We are tangible beings built with the capacity to evolve and expand beyond our physical form into the realm of curiosity and imagination.”
Natalia’s Biomorphic Sculpture collection consists of eight pieces made of environmentally friendly materials ranging from bronze to ceramics to mixed media. The keynote of interconnection between all the living beings in the universe manifests itself in endless shapes of interlacing lines and curves, winding and twisting, merging, separating, and merging again, reflecting the dynamic topography of human existence.
The sculptures bear many influences not only from the natural world but also from the artistic and intellectual heritage of collective mankind. Take, for example, One Ended Knot, a bronze piece made in 2020. According to the artist, the inspiration for it came from the ancient Roman statue Laokoön and His Sons, dated to approximately 200 BC and excavated in Rome in the XVI century. Called by art historians “the prototypical icon of human agony,” it shows the Trojan priest Laokoön and his sons struggling with the giant sea serpent. The particular interest for Natalia was the expression of a “flowing and constricting body of a serpent, akin to the lockdown restrictions due to the global pandemic.”
In Unisurface, completed throughout 2020-2022, Natalia’s inspiration comes from Möbius strip or band, the concept rooted in Euclidean geometry of space representing a non-orientable surface, within which one cannot always distinguish the direction and where an asymmetric twodimensional object sliding one time around the strip, comes back to its initial position as its mirror image. Such a phenomenon reveals multiple uncertainties within a seemingly elemental structure. The artist wants to remind us that “despite all the mutations we undergo individually and societally, we are all bound to the same surface of our planet, one for all of us.”
One Ended Knot prototype, mixed media sculpture
15H x 25W x 5D inches, 2020
Harmony. View 2
bronze sculpture
15H x 15D x 10D inches, 2019 -2020
Harmony. View 2 bronze sculpture
15H x 15D x 10D inches, 2019 -2020
Unisurface. View 1
bronze sculpture
18H x 16W x 8D inches, 2020 -2021
Unisurface. View 2 bronze sculpture
Emergence
mixed media sculpture
15H x 16W x8D inches, 2020 -2022
Emergence. Fragment mixed media sculpture
15H x 16W x 8D inches, 2020 -2022
Oculus
mixed media sculpture
16H
Morphing Band
prototype, mixed media sculpture
24 H x 20W x 8D inches, 2020
Bounded. View 1
stoneware sculpture
20H x 12W x 10D inches, 2018
Bounded. View 2 stoneware sculpture
20H x 12W x 10D inches, 2018
Trajectories
“Trajectories are a series of painterly drawings or graphic paintings to capture movement and, in some cases, light. It is about multiple rays and waves surrounding us. Think of the electromagnetic fields, UV rays, radio waves and satellite signals. Invisible to the human eye, they are everywhere, forming a lacelike fluid fabric, denser in the urban settings and less concentrated in the rural, less populated areas.
Streamlines are the initial inspiration that manifested in the long months of lockdown. I created numerous large-scale drawings of interwoven lines and fields. I was expressing the fabric of inner and outer worlds, which, as I discovered through my process, is the same - the single unseparable Oneness.”
Rays and Streams
mixed media on paper
30 x 22 inches, 2020
Blue Silver Gold Trajectories
Triptych
mixed media on paper 12 x 36 inches, 2020
Red Pink Orange Trajectories
Triptych
mixed media on paper
12 x 36 inches, 2020
Baroque Streamers. Triptych mixed media on paper 30 x 66 inches, 2020
Moving Forward. Triptych mixed media on paper 14 x 33 inches, 2020
Art Deco Streamlines. Triptych mixed media on paper 30 x 66 inches, 2020
Streamlines
Summer Vibes
mixed media on wooden panel
24 x 24 inches, 2020
Summer Vibes 3
mixed media on wooden panel
24 x 24 inches, 2020
Summer Vibes 2
mixed media on wooden panel 24 x 36 inches, 2020
Neon Trajectories. Diptych pigment stick, felt pen on paper 22 x 60 inches, 2020
Radiant Waves. Diptych pigment stick, felt pen on paper 22 x 60 inches, 2020
InnerSpaces
“During the tumultuous times of the Pandemic, I went inward, looking for security in spiritual stamina and dealing with uncertainty. The series of large paintings, Inner Spaces, was a record of that period.
The Inner Ocean of thoughts and sensations churns within each of us. Silky-smooth, it flows around the blocks and obstacles, allowing us to be aware of our inner dynamic. This painting provides a tactile experience of various textures in the flow, while serving as a thought-provoking visual meditation.
There is Silver Lining to almost any situation. This painting reminds us to look for the positive in life, no matter how tenuous it may seem. The colors here are harmonized with the subtle shades of cloud white, sky blue, silver, sunny yellow and rose.
Dreams are our guides during dark times. Hope for a better future is a projection of our mind. Each individual hope is subjective to its specific circumstances. Using the universal language of abstraction, I want to o er the viewer of this painting a sweet journey into their own inner space to contemplate and reach out to their own Hopes and Dreams.”
Inner Space
mixed media on wooden panel
48 x 36 inches, 2020
Hope and Dreams mixed media on canvas 24 x 36 inches, 2022
48 x 36 inches, 2020 -2022
AWARDS
2022 Allied Artists of America for Bronze Sculpture
2021 Certificate of Excellence for Painting at the Empirical Abstraction Show
2020 Selected one of the Top Ten Artists in Wide Walls international publication.
2019 Celia Kaufman Memorial Award For Innovative Ceramic Sculpture
2018 NAWA Certificate of Excellence Award in Photography
2016 Jean M. Leeman Award for Printmaking
2014 Esther C. Gayner Memorial Award for Printmaking
PUBLICATIONS
2023 Featured in Art Business News by Redwood Group. New York Art Expo
2023 Sanctuary Magazine. Interview with Editor. By Myrna Haskell.
2022 Allied Artists of America. 109th Annual Award Winners Catalog.
2021 Elysian Magazine. Unique Feature on NAWA by Suzanne Johnson.
Atlanta, GA - New York, NY
2020 Top Ten Artists. “Focus Blue” Feature on Wide Walls by Balasz Takasch
2020 National Association of Women Artists Magazine. “Red Carpet feature”, NYC
2018 The High Brow Magazine. “ Celebrate Women” By Sandra Bertrand, NYC
2011 “Together”. Exhibition Catalog. New Century Artists, Chelsea, NYC
2010 The Art Times. “International Women Artists” in Highland Art Center, Beacon, NY
MEMBERSHIPS AND AFFILIATIONS
National Association of Women Artists, Inc., Board of Directors
Allied Artists of America, Elected Member
Art Students League of New York, Member
Art Plexus, art collective core member
Monotype Guild of New England, Cambridge, MA
Koren Kropf Studio, Owner
Aquarian Woman Art Project, Founder
Art Completes You, Amazon Bestser Self-Help, Project Collaborator, and Contributor
Global Art Project for Peace International Exchange, supporter and participant
The New School For Social Research University, Alumnae
Works in private collections in Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Greece, Cyprus, Finland, Russia, Japan, Lesotho, Argentina, Chile, and the United States.
Curator & Design: Elena Iosilevich
Editor & Text: Ellen Opman
Catalog cover:
Summer Vibes 3
mixed media on wooden panel 24 x 24 inches, 2020
Website: www.KorenKropf.com
IG: @nataliakorenkropf
FB: natalia.korenkropf
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