At four years of age, artist Aelita Andre is the youngest professional painter in the world. Using acrylics and mixed media, she creates large tableaux of abstract forms as she swirls, spreads, and pours paint across the canvas. She often incorporates bark, twigs, children’s toys, bird feathers, and other found objects into her paintings, lending depth and texture to the overall effect. What makes Aelita’s work so compelling is the lightness that pervades her work, a carefree approach that remains completely innocent of anything except those materials that lie before her. Colors are pure, forms unfettered, resulting in an immediacy and spontaneity that renders each painting unique. Yet underlying her free approach is a real attention to both composition and form, a testament to her intuitive artistic prowess. These paintings are both contemplative and powerful, providing a window into the emancipated creative subconscious mind of a child.

Aelita Andre is of Russian heritage but currently lives with her parents in Melbourne, Australia, She first gained international attention when she was 20 months old, creating her first impressive body of artwork before reaching the age of two.

Without explaining who Aelita was or about her age, her mother showed some examples of her art to the curator of an exhibition she was herself due to take part in – and he was so impressed that he asked to get in touch with the artist so that he could include the work he had been shown! Once the identity of the artist was explained to him, he remained undaunted – the quality of the work proved that it should be included in the exhibition together with that of talented professional artists, regardless of the age of its creator. Since then Aelita has gained prestige throughout the world, and her paintings are held in collections in Europe, Asia and Australia. Britain’s BBC 

even congratulated her on her second birthday!

The following statement was given on her style of creativity: 

"Aelita’s style is reminiscent of Mark Tobey’s “Canticle” specifically, as well as broadly the pioneering ‘accidentalist’ work of Andre Masson (who influenced Pollock) and the accidentalist movement. Masson used lack of sleep, deprivation of food and also the use of drugs to free himself from rational control and get closer to the subconscious mind - a state in which children ‘naturally’ operate in without the requirement of drugs, alcohol and sleep/food deprivation. In other words for children, as in Aelita’ case, this is the normal and natural mode of operation".

“It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child”

Pablo Picasso

and some favourite quotes:

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” - Edgar Degas

“Science is what we do to keep us from lying to ourselves”

“The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.” - Francis bacon

“There is no must in art because art is free.” - Wassily Kandinsky

 

“Art is whatever you can get away with.” - Andy Warhol