ABOUT ME

I was born in 1969 in a family of architects. Since childhood I was surrounded drawings, sketches, lots of pencils and a huge library of books on art and architecture. I could regard books on sculpture, painting, eventually start to copy your favorite murals, sketches of the great painters and sculptors for hours. Most of all I was inspired Michelangelo, Mariano Benlliure, Antonio Canova, Auguste Rodin, Bernini, Jean Baptiste Carpeaux, CesareLapini, OrazioAndreoni and etc. I tried to understand how to express movement in sculptures, drawings, plastic of body with various movements. I fell in love with the Sculpture, began studying art anatomy, took private lessons with sculptor Roman Manevich who helped to see the birth process of sculpture. He explained to me the importance of volume in the figure, its components, the interaction of all parts of the body in motion.

In 1999 I began to create my own miniature sculpture. Japanese miniature sculpture has always been my admiration! Okimono and netsuke are a special world of graceful plasticity, charm and philosophy of Wabi-sabi.
The more I learned about Japan, the more I discovered different faces of arts and traditions. Printed prints, Maki-e - Japanese Lacquered technicues, temple sculptures, beauty of kimonos, gardens, ikebana ...

I like to work with different materials. I carve my fine sculptures from mammoth tusk, box-wood, cachalot tooth, walrus tusk, elk horn and etc. Maki-e with a lot of different technicues, Urushi lacquers, silver and gold powders and flakes. Every of these materials has the special feature and I like to mix materials and techniques. The process of making sculptures is a time consuming one. It usually takes me up to some months to make just one sculpture, although the time frame may be shorter for less challenging works. Many of my works were custom-made.

I’m a member of The International Netsuke Society since January 2005.

Exhibition:

Two of my sculptures, “Spring” and “Dreaming Winter”, were exhibited in The Royal Society of Miniature Painters, Sculptors & Gravers in London, UK, 16-28 October 2007. http://royal-miniature-society.org.uk.

The exhibition in the State Museum of Oriental Art in Moscow, November 2017, there were 120 netsuke of modern sculptors from Russia, Japan, CIS countries and EWurope. 5 netsuke were done by me and were published in the exhibition catalogue.

Publications:

The article "The Netsuke of Natasha Popova" about my Ryusa style netsuke has been published in The International Netsuke Society Journal Spring 2008 Issue http://www.netsuke.org/2008INSJournals.

The article “Contemporary carver Natasha Popova” in the CIS Netsuke Society journal http://netsuke.org.ru/articles/2010-11-01/journal.html

The article "Natasha Popova" by Luigi B. Olliaro has been publushed in the Interational Netsuke Society Journal Summer 2015 http://www.netsuke.org/Resources/Documents/INS-Journals/2015/2015-Summer.pdf

The column by Pat Calhoun in the Interational Netsuke Society Journal Winter 2016 http://www.netsuke.org/Resources/Documents/INS-Journals/2016/2016-Winter.pdf

The column by Pat Calhoun in the Interational Netsuke Society JournalSpring 2016 http://www.netsuke.org/Resources/Documents/INS-Journals/2016/Spring-Vol-36.pdf

The exhibition in the State Museum of Oriental Art in Moscow, November 2017, there were 120 netsuke of modern sculptors from Russia, Japan, CIS countries and Europe. 5 netsuke were done by me and were published in the exhibition catalogue.