TANA BASH (Alla Tanabash)

You describe yourself as an independent self-taught artist. How did your artistic journey begin, and what inspired you to pursue painting seriously?

Art is not merely a path, but a way of being.

My creative journey began long before I ever picked up a brush or a marker. Art had always been with me: it echoed in the fairy tales my grandmother told me as a child, hid within the patterns of old wallpaper, and shimmered with all the colours of the rainbow in the raindrops outside my window.

I never studied painting through textbooks or academic programmes. My university has been life in all its forms—from the morning light dancing on the leaves of trees to unexpected conversations with strangers in cafés. I am a self-taught artist because I believe that true inspiration cannot be found in a class schedule. It can only be captured as it passes by, like a butterfly.

What inspired me to pursue painting seriously?

It was a moment of revelation. One day, I realised that words could no longer express what was stirring inside me. My thoughts had become too complex for sentences, and my emotions too vivid for letters. That was when I began to paint—tentatively at first, and then with increasing confidence. Every brushstroke became my voice, every dot a word, and every patch of colour an entire story.

Painting became my way of speaking about what cannot be described in words. It is a dialogue with the world in which there are no rules of grammar, only the language of emotion. When I paint, I do not simply create a picture—I live through it. Each work is born from silence, from an inner dialogue that eventually breaks through to the surface in the form of lines and colours.

My art is not primarily about technique, although technique is important. It is about sincerity.

I am an independent artist because freedom of choice is my most important tool. I allow myself to make mistakes, experiment, and search for my own unique voice without being constrained by the expectations of others. This is where my strength lies: in being myself, listening to my heart, and trusting my intuition.

This is how my journey began. It continues every day, and I do not know where this path will lead me. But I know one thing for certain: as long as I have paint and canvas, I will continue telling the stories that live within each of us.

TANA BASH (Alla Tanabash) | The Secrets Of Midnight | 2026

How have your life experiences and personal history influenced the themes, emotional atmosphere, and visual language of your work?

Life is my greatest teacher, and art is a way of translating its lessons into the language of color and form.

In these works, you see not merely Cubist experiments with geometry, but a reflection of my personal experience and inner world. The Alley, in which a human figure dissolves into the rhythm of the trees, was inspired by memories of long walks through the park, when I sought solitude in nature. This tunnel-like avenue symbolizes the path toward self-discovery: the farther you go, the more deeply you merge with the surrounding space.

The cats that appear in many of my compositions, as in Woman and Cat, are connected to my own biography. I have twelve cats, most of whom were abandoned and taken in. Caring for them has taught me compassion and patience, while their independent nature has inspired me to create images that combine grace with mystery. In this painting, the woman and the animal are united by a shared blue background, as though they exist within the same emotional space, sharing moments of silence and contemplation.

Portraiture holds a special place in my practice. I never depict people in a completely realistic manner. Instead, I fragment the face into triangles and planes, as though attempting to look beyond the mask of everyday life. This approach reflects my journey as a self-taught artist: I learned to see the world through the lens of emotion rather than academic rules. In the portrait of a woman with blue accents on her face, I used cool tones to convey a state of inner harmony or perhaps gentle melancholy. These blue lines are my personal marks—a visual code through which I express the state of the soul.

My visual language is therefore a mosaic of personal experiences. Each work is a dialogue between my past and the present moment of creation. Cubism allows me to deconstruct reality and then reassemble it from my own perspective, transforming ordinary scenes into profound metaphors.

TANA BASH (Alla Tanabash) | The Geometry Of Tenderness | 2026

Your work combines abstraction with elements of Cubism. What attracts you to the geometric interpretation of figures and space?

In geometry, I find not limitation, but boundless freedom.

For me, abstraction and Cubism are the two wings of a single flight: one allows me to soar through a world of pure emotions and sensations, while the other provides support through structural lines and planes. I am drawn to the geometrisation of figures and space primarily because it reveals the essence of things.

Geometry is a way of seeing the invisible. In everyday life, we are accustomed to perceiving the world through the lens of reality: an apple is round, a tree has a trunk and branches. Yet when these forms are broken down into triangles, squares, and lines, the hidden rhythms of the universe begin to emerge from beneath their familiar surfaces. Geometrisation helps me perceive the tension and the internal forces that hold a form together or seek to destroy it. It is like an X-ray of an object’s soul.

Cubism is a language of inner dialogue. When I divide a human face or figure into planes of different colours, I am not merely playing with form. I am dissecting the personality, revealing multiple facets of a person’s character to the viewer simultaneously. The gaze may be direct, while the eyes themselves are composed of numerous angular fragments reflecting doubts, memories, and hopes. This technique allows me to speak directly about the complexity of human nature, bypassing the conventions of portrait likeness.

Structure is the harmony of chaos. The abstract backgrounds of my works often resemble a cosmic void or a whirlpool of thoughts. The Cubist figures become islands of stability within this flow. They provide a point of visual support, allowing the eyes to rest after the surrounding visual noise. For me, this contrast between abstract space and clearly defined facets is a metaphor for life itself: the infinite mutability of the world and the human desire to find order within it.

By geometrising space, I therefore create my own alphabet of images. Instead of letters, I use triangles; instead of sentences, areas of colour. When these elements come together, a unique text is born—one that every viewer reads in their own way.

Many of the works presented are dominated by shades of blue, turquoise, and violet. What symbolic and emotional significance does this palette hold for you?

Blue is not merely a color, but a state of mind.

In my work, a cool palette of blues, turquoise, and violet serves as a visual equivalent of silence, depth, and inner harmony. It is the color of contemplation, which I find in twilight and in the reflections on water.

For me, turquoise has always been associated with purity and transparency. It recalls those moments when thoughts become crystal clear and emotions flow smoothly, without sudden shifts. Combined with deep blue, this shade creates a sense of space, as though it expands the boundaries of the canvas and invites the viewer to look beyond the horizon of the painting.

Violet, particularly in its darker shades, symbolizes the mysticism of everyday life. It appears where the visible world ends and something greater begins: intuition, premonition, mystery. This color often surrounds the human figures in my compositions, creating an aura of enigma around their faces. A violet sky above an avenue or the background of a portrait becomes a metaphor for the subject’s inner world—a realm that cannot be accessed directly, but can only be sensed through the reflections that appear on its surface.

This palette is my way of speaking about a form of melancholy that is not sadness. It is, rather, a contemplative calm, a moment suspended in time. The blue shadows on a woman’s face or the geometric planes of the trees in The Avenue suggest that life flows slowly, giving us the opportunity to pause and experience its depth.

When I work with these shades, I feel like a guide between the world of forms and the world of emotions. Cool colors allow me to convey what cannot be expressed in words: the silence of the night, the coolness of the morning air, and the infinity of the cosmos within each of us.

TANA BASH (Alla Tanabash) | Shadow Of The Soul | 2026

The female figures in your paintings appear strong, contemplative, and slightly mysterious at the same time. Who are these heroines, and what emotional states do you seek to convey through them?

The female figures in my works are not portraits of specific individuals, but archetypes of emotional states and feelings.

Each heroine embodies an inner dialogue. Through them, I seek to convey the multifaceted nature of femininity that often remains hidden behind the masks of everyday life: strength concealed beneath outward softness, and the depth of thoughts that cannot be read from a facial expression.

Strength without aggression. Their poses contain no deliberate display of power or vulnerability. They simply exist, occupying space with dignity. Their strength is revealed through stillness and through the way they accept themselves as they are. It is a state of inner stability in which a woman becomes an entire world unto herself.

Thoughtfulness as a form of contemplation. These women do not look at the viewer; they look within themselves or into the distance. Their gaze is directed towards a place where words lose their meaning. Here, thoughtfulness is not passivity, but an active process of reflecting on life and searching for answers to eternal questions. It suggests that the beauty of a moment lies precisely in experiencing it slowly and fully.

Mystery as a reflection of depth. The Cubist fragmentation of faces into geometric planes is my way of showing that a personality cannot be reduced to a single emotion or moment. Sadness may be hidden behind a smile, while a storm of emotions may lie beneath a calm exterior. The mysterious masks composed of triangles and lines tell the viewer: “I am more complex than what you see.” This sense of incompleteness draws the viewer’s attention and encourages them to search for hidden meanings.

Who are these heroines?

In essence, they are all different manifestations of myself. They may also represent any woman capable of being both the keeper of the home and the captain of her own ship. Each work is an attempt to capture the moment when the outer shell dissolves, revealing an infinite universe within.

TANA BASH (Alla Tanabash) | Evening In Facets | 2026

In several works, a cat appears beside a woman. What does this image symbolize, and why has it become an important part of your artistic universe?

The cat in my work is not merely an animal, but a metaphor for independence and inner freedom.

This image has become an integral part of my artistic universe for several reasons. First, it is deeply autobiographical: as I have already mentioned, I have twelve cats, most of whom were abandoned. Caring for them has taught me compassion, patience, and unconditional love. Most importantly, however, I discovered in these animals a unique combination of grace and self-sufficiency. A cat never asks for attention; it accepts or rejects it on its own terms. For me, this quality has become a symbol of inner strength.

Unlike the dog, which embodies loyalty and devotion, the cat symbolizes a subtle perception of the world. It hears what we cannot hear and sees in the dark. When placed beside a female figure, the cat emphasizes the intuitive nature of a woman and her ability to sense what remains invisible.

When a cat appears in a composition, it becomes a reflection of the heroine’s inner state. If the woman is sitting thoughtfully, the cat may appear calm; if the model’s gaze is directed into the distance, the cat looks in the same direction, as though sharing her melancholic detachment. They exist within the same emotional space.

In the mythology of many cultures, the cat is associated with the cycles of life, magic, and the mysteries of the night. I use this archetypal symbolism to emphasize the connection between female figures and something ancient and unchanging. Together, the woman and the cat create a sense of timelessness within the scene.

Thus, the cat in my work is a companion to the feminine principle, embodying the part of us that lives by its own rules and listens to its inner voice more closely than to external expectations. This image allows me to explore the harmony between human beings and the natural world, as well as the importance of preserving one’s independence even within the closest relationships.

TANA BASH (Alla Tanabash) | Constellation Of Two | 2026

How have the recognition you received at the Golden Time Talent competition and the interest of collectors from different countries influenced your confidence, and what professional goals are you currently pursuing?

Recognition is not merely a reward, but a powerful impetus to keep moving forward.

Receiving a diploma at the Golden Time Talent competition and learning about the interest that collectors from different countries—especially Germany—had shown in my work marked an important moment for me. However, the true turning point in my life as an artist was discovering and studying at Sasha Robinson’s online school. It enabled me to move from intuitive creativity to a conscious mastery of my craft. The programme gave me not only new tools, but also confidence that I was following the right path. It transformed my painting from a personal diary into a language that could be understood by the international art community.

Until then, I had been a self-taught artist who painted from the heart, without considering the market or current trends. Recognition from a professional jury and the international art community helped me understand that what I create has value not only for me, but also for other people. This recognition transformed my inner confidence into a solid professional foundation. I realised that my path was the right one, even though it did not conform to academic conventions.

I stopped being afraid to experiment. When you know that your style resonates with viewers beyond your own country, you gain the courage to go even further. I am currently developing my cubic dotting technique and exploring new combinations of geometry and abstraction. This style will be reflected in all my future series.

I now understand that my works travel around the world and hang in the homes of people I have never met. This makes me approach every painting as a message that must be filled with meaning.

My current professional goals are:

Creating the “Purple Universe” series: I want to deepen my exploration of the cool shades of blue and violet that have become my signature. In this series, I plan to portray different states of the feminine principle through the prism of the cosmos within us.

Holding an exhibition in Europe: My goal is to organise a solo exhibition at a European gallery. The interest shown by German collectors was the first step, and I am now working to ensure that my paintings find their place within an international context.

Developing my own school of colour: I aim to formulate a theory explaining how geometric forms interact with abstract backgrounds within my particular colour palette. I would like to leave behind not only paintings, but also a methodology that could inspire other self-taught artists.

The “Feline Alchemy” series: Since cats occupy such an important place in my life and artistic practice, I am planning a series in which these animals will be the central figures. These will not be charming portraits, but profound, metaphorical compositions revealing their symbolic significance.

Ultimately, recognition has become a compass guiding my artistic development. It has shown me that my art is needed in this world, and my main goal now is to speak to the world through the language of colour as loudly and sincerely as possible.