Sometimes I feel like I can hear the earth crack.
Not loudly — but quietly, like the rustle of paper.
It’s not the sound of breaking. It’s the sound of truth.
I create paintings that don’t want to be smooth.
They’re not about straightening edges or fitting into frames.
They’re about breathing.
About surfaces that once held moisture, then dried in the sun and stayed exactly as they were meant to be.
I apply a raw layer of paper clay and leave it alone.
In the morning, the cracks appear where they want to.
Without my direction. Without control.
As if they already know where it feels too tight.
In one of my works — Arsenisca — the surface cracked like sun-dried sand.
The color was almost faded, like a stone that had lain in the light too long.
I ran my finger across the wet surface — not because I had planned to,
but because I couldn’t not touch it.
The mark stayed. And I didn’t erase it.
Sometimes my paintings look tired.
Sometimes — as if someone had touched them and left a trace.
And I like that.
I don’t want perfection.
I want life.
Dusty, uneven, real.
I’m not an artist who “knows what she’s doing.”
I’m more like someone who listens.
Layer by layer, hand after hand, I try to stay close to the material.
I guess I just follow. The material always knows more than I do.
Not to command it, not to explain — just to be with it, and follow.
I call it quiet imperfection.
When there’s no need to finish.
When something can be left unsaid.
Left here gently, for whoever needed to read.
— Natalia
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