* All images used with permission. Please do not distribute without first contacting the artist.
Larissa Morais received a BFA from the Moscow Theatrical Arts Institute and later attended the Graduate School of Restoration and Conservation to study the restoration and conservation of 15th and 16th century paintings. She considers that to restore a painting is to paint your own strokes to history.
In her own work, Morais is influenced by all manner of personal experience. Her preferred subject is the human figure, which she likens to architecture. The male and female figures are realistically painted and often intimately posed, but never quite animate.
Morais paints on large, black canvas in thin layers of oil paint, light on dark. She strives to capture every detail of her subject, for she sees it there. ‘It exists,’ she says. ‘My job is merely to uncover it.’
