Review in Broughton House Gallery, 1998

STRANGE CANVASES WITH A TOUCH OF FANTASY
Natasha Manelis: a personal vision

Our view of art from Russia is fragmented: a melange of memoirs of the Malevich geometric compositions around 1915, of Kandinsky's paintings that led the way to 20th century abstract painting, of Soviet social realism of the thirties and forties, and the recent reminder (at the Royal Academy) of the riches of Russian icon painting - and, perhaps the most widespread of impressions, the world of fantasy and fable of Chagall.

So what should we expect of a young painter (still under 30) born in Tadzhikistan, trained in St.Petersburg, who has spent time and exhibited in Canada before returning to St.Petersburg to continue her painting? Natasha Manelis paints her personal vision of a life which could be anywhere: the elements of her paintings are human figures of still life - a chair, a scarf, a hat, a glass, a bottle etc. But - and it is a big but - the impression these canvases leave is strange, suggestive of fantasy, at times almost surreal. The single chair stranded in a vast landscape, the figure playing the cello reflected in a window? mirror? under a crescent moon, the sometimes sad, sometimes quizzical face that speaks to the viewer of a story not quite told, only hinted at. The colours have a Slav depth and richness, often structures in bold shapes - segments of a circle, elements of a chequerboard.