04/21/2016
We have a new artist ! Oksana Fogg
With more than 50 awards from various art exhibitions, and, most notably, recognized as the Artist of the Year 2014 by the New Orleans Art Association, Oksana Fogg of Metairie credits her travels with providing her with the memories and emotions she is successfully able to convey in more than 500 paintings.
Fogg was born in a coastal town on the Black Sea in Ukraine, alongside a stunning array of sea, sunflower fields and vineyards. At age 10, her family moved to Siberia, where she filled her time with hiking, camping in the serenity of the forests and climbing mountains in "one of the coldest places on earth.
"After the war, there wasn't an excess of supplies for schools. Students in the village were only given a couple of pads that were to last for the entire semester," she said. "My uncle was punished harshly when, instead of saving his paper for lessons, he used his pages for beautiful pencil drawings."
Fogg followed the same path as her uncle, drawing in her notebooks repeatedly, and often got in trouble as well.
"I met my husband at 22, married him three years later and moved to Tashkent, Uzbekistan," Fogg said. "Three years later, we moved to Geneva, Switzerland, where I added French to the four languages I have mastered along the way."
Fogg's adventures eventually led her to America, where she, her husband, and two boys settled in Louisiana.
Having mastered the art of pencil drawings since childhood, amazingly, Fogg didn't use any other paint medium until six years ago. With encouragement from her friend, Fog enrolled in a basic art class at a Jefferson playground.
"I never had any art formal training," Fog said. "Although my friend changed her mind at the last minute, I decided to still go to class and my whole perspective on art changed at that moment forward."
Since then, Fogg has enrolled in the New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts. "It's a wonderful place where magic happens; as soon as you enter the academy, you can smell art," Fog said. "I believe that only 1 percent of talent is needed to become a great artist. The other 99 percent is made up of dedication, hard work, and continuously studying your craft."
Fogg has experimented with different media over the past few years, including watercolor, pastel, charcoal, acrylic and oil but finds her comfort level with oil.
"I enjoy painting colorful, simple, still lives, but my favorite is painting portraits," Fogg said. "I look for something special in each person, looking into their eyes to capture the essence of their soul."
Fogg also paints landscapes and appreciates the opportunity to have discovered southern Louisiana, reeling in the beauty of its coral skies, mysterious swamps, and the endless wildlife of the marshes. Combined with the sounds of nature and the smells surrounding her, painting outside has become one of her favorite ways to paint.
It's no wonder that Fogg prefers the outdoors, considering her hobbies include mountain climbing and primitive camping the forest, including adventures in the summer, with annual hiking trips in the Crimea Mountains in (formerly) Ukraine. She also displays her creativity through dancing and stays busy with her family and two sons.
PICTURES OF WORKS TO FOLLOW !!!
