Featured Artist: Pilateg

Pilateg’s philosophy that “with dreams about summer, it's easier to survive during the winter” is something that is evident in her bright and cheerful art. Her fun designs — like a sleepy penguin eating pizza — are a splash of sunshine that help audiences survive the dark winter-like periods in life.

The artist Pilateg needs “home comfort, coffee, and music” to be able to feel at peace and create her artwork. She creates designs that are bright and uplifting to help her survive the gloomy Saint Petersburg winters. In fact, she is especially excited to pursue street art this summer to liven up the “abandoned walls of my city” and to add to the color and vibrancy of the summer months. She even jokes that she would love to fly because then she could “do murals and nobody could catch” her.

She admits that she doesn’t “believe in such a thing as inspiration” and that she has a much more pragmatic attitude towards the creative process. For her, art is more about sitting down, focusing, mastering new techniques, and pushing herself to create rather than just waiting on an imaginary muse.

Pilateg is very interested in the Russian avant-garde artist, Kazimir Severinovich Malevich, and his infamous porcelain teapots, as well as, the “The Swan Princess” painting by Mikhail Vrube. Although she is drawn to “epoch-making” art pieces like these, she would “rather see living street art” instead.

Pilateg wants the world to be a more positive place and she even goes as far as to wish that “everyone's a pony and they all eat rainbows and poop butterflies!" Although she jokes about people being happier, she also genuinely believes that they need to be less “serious and arrogant” and should instead try to focus on being happy. She believes there is too much violence and war in our society and that we must all work to make it a better place.

Pilateg encourages other artists to not be afraid to pursue art because “mistakes, a blank sheet, friends and public opinion are not so scary” and that you must continue to push yourself to succeed.