Nina's Art Story of Displaced People

My name is Nina Stoupina, I am an artist and live in Ghent, Belgium, but am originally from Russia. I was born in 1955 in the traditional town of Tula and loved to paint even when I was in school. My teachers encouraged me to purse art, although my parents disapproved of it. In the Soviet era it was presumed that if one wanted to become a painter, one would study at the Art Institute in Moscow and I studied there between 1975-1980. Art saved my soul and gave an alternative vision and expression of the world. During this time I did various jobs in Moscow ranging from billboard designer for the Moscow cinema, cleaner in a sport complex, where I broke many crystal vases, and security guard for the telephone company. After I graduated I took a job in the "Ministry of Culture" where I approved stone products for production in the USSR for one year in 1980-81. But my heart was not with the Ministry. It was in this period that I had the great fortune to be able to develop the art of abstract painting in the underground studio of the very rebelliuse painter Bilutin, who was known in the world. Here I found the inspiration from my motherland and its heritage. I was given the opportunity to work as a designer in the biggest carpet company in Moscow from 1980-1992. During this time, I had the possibility of travel and work in 15 republics of the Soviet Union and in this period I visited and worked in India, Singapore, Cuba, Malaysia, Indonesia, where I discovered the riches of those cultures and took a lot of inspiration. I fell in love with Asian traditional techniques, such as using silk, and still use these techniques in my art today. I became a member of the International Union of Design in 1987 and of the USSR Artists Union in 1989. During this time I exhibited in exhibitions all over the world and joined global Art Residences. In 1992 during the design fair in Hannover-Germany, I was invited by Jan de Clerk from the renowned Belgium carpet company to create a design where I met my future husband Marc Peckstadt. So from 1995, I started a new life for me in Ghent with two nationalities and I liked it because it made me a citizen of the world. Before I travelled from my motherland to visit different cultures, but now I live in a different culture and view my homeland with a sharpened sense of change. I express my sense of belonging and home in my art and I try to find my own language through it. It expresses my wandering soul and represents a mean of expressing my own memories. I use old photographs, writings and personal intimate notes that allow the viewer to get my understanding of the painting. The picture of the installation with the fish represents these memories of Russia and narratives of home: the document at the top is a war document of my father, the bottom picture shows my brother in army uniform and the glass in the middle is typical from Soviet time, while the sand is a symbol of time running through these memories. When you first see my works, the first sense you feel is ‘home’ or absence of it. Many years I found my inspiration in my motherland. The sense of "Home" and "Movement" are a constant in my paintings and highlighted by the fragile state of being. The life experience helps me to understand the world. I try to find the balance between my past and present, between the world and myself. Another of my paintings in the picture is called ‘Podium’, because in recent times we foreigners are often placed on a podium to show our difference to others, and we therefore feel even more different and are afraid to say our opinions, we are the ‘other’. I did an exhibition on the concept of "Displaced People", particularly the changes of these people in our modern society, as we are constantly moving from place to place and context to context. Therefore, the essence of my recent works reflects feeling excluded, suspended in a world that is constantly changing. 17 years ago, I was already interviewed about my migration story and you can see the interview in the book that I am holding in one of the pictures. If you want to know more about me of my art, you can look at my webpage: http://www.art-ninastoupina.be