Natasha Zavialov was born in Leningrad, USSR (now St. Petersburg, Russia) in 1957. She obtained a Master's Degree in Fine Art at the Academy of Applied Arts in St. Petersburg and came to England in 1998 after marrying the artist Michael Zavialov. Her art practice is primarily focused on painterly abstraction, while she also works with primary schools through the Zavialov Art Studio, set up with her close family.
Artist Natasha Zavialov was born in Leningrad, USSR (now St. Petersburg, Russia) in 1957. She relocated to England in 1998, having completed her Master’s Degree in Fine Art at the Academy of Applied Arts in St. Petersburg.
Zavilov’s oeuvre includes painting, collage and ceramics. She views her painterly practice with a musical methodology, creating vibrant harmonies from both abstract and figurative elements, while paying attention to create a rhythm that invites viewers to feel the emancipating power of colour. Her paintings exhibit a blend of abstract expressionism and figuration, creating a dynamic interplay between chaos and structure. Her use of vibrant colours and bold lines evokes the energetic spontaneity of early 20th-century European avant-garde painting trends, as exemplified by Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee. Zavilov’s compositions, while rooted in abstraction, often incorporate symbolic elements that invite viewers into a narrative, bridging the gap between pure abstraction and representational art. Her oeuvre is divided into several series: landscapes, legend, hunters, aircraft, flowers, and drawings. The landscapes series is purely abstracted and characterised by a bold and minimalist simplicity of earthy tones that generate a meditative sense of place. In child-like imagery of geometric shapes and vivid hues, she explores the theme of flight in the aircraft series, where mechanical contraptions blend with whimsical imagination. Hunters is a series featuring stylised figures in traditional costume rendered in a modernist manner. The legend series brings her closest to Kandinsky, with mysterious abstract forms and symbolic resonance dominating the canvas. In Zavilov’s drawings series, the interplay of swiftly-executed lines and vibrant colours creates a playful tableau, where abstract forms and ambiguous symbols evoke a sense of restless imagination. The flowers series deconstructs nature to its elementary forms, with textured brushstrokes and vivid colours giving only the barest forms needed for the viewer to recognise floral themes.
Zavialov and her husband, fellow artist Michael Zavialov, who works under the name Mischa Z, held concurrent exhibitions at The Gallery in Cork Street, London W1 in 2002. The couple also collaborate with their children, Anna and Vas Zavialov, under the banner of Zavialov Art Studio, each pursuing distinct creative endeavours. Natasha and Michael focus on abstract expressionism, while Anna specialises in videography, and Vas has a keen interest in illustration. Zavialov Art Studio regularly works with schools; for example, they have collaborated several times with Alfred Sutton Primary School in Reading.
Zavialov has had several exhibitions in the UK and Europe, including the Reading Contemporary Art Fair in 2010, an exhibition at Reading Hospital in 2013, and the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition in London in 2018. In 2024, she took part in the Whiteknights Studio Trail, a walking trail via artists’ studios in the University of Reading area. Natasha Zavialov lives and works in Reading, Berkshire. Her works are not part of any public collection in the UK.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Natasha Zavialov]
Publications related to [Natasha Zavialov] in the Ben Uri Library