Ariadna Shmandurova is a fine artist and designer who lives and works in Amsterdam.
Ariadna was born in the Soviet Union, in the city of Krasnodar, into a family of well-known monumental artists, Narkis and Antonina Shmandurov. Her childhood was spent in an artistic environment, where the atmosphere was anything but Soviet—the interiors were reminiscent of the art of the Old Masters, of 17th-century Dutch painting, and French Impressionism.

In 1986, the family moved to Moscow, where Ariadna continued her education at one of the city’s most rigorous and prestigious institutions—Academic Art School in Memory of 1905. It provided a rigorous classical education, where students were trained in academic techniques, including drawing plaster casts of heads and mastering various artistic methods.

By the late 1980s and early 1990s, new artistic movements were emerging in Soviet reality, introducing contemporary art into the cultural landscape. Ariadna found herself at the heart of the underground and alternative art scene.

In 1989, Ariadna enrolled in the Interior Design Department of the Stroganov Moscow State Academy of Arts and Industry. The world around her was changing ra-pidly—borders were opening, contemporary design was emerging, and she was eager to learn how to work with space.

At the time, the country was undergoing major transformations—Perestroika had begun in 1985 under Mikhail Gorbachev, the old system was collapsing, and this was a time when the first galleries and contemporary art centers were opening, offering entirely new opportunities and perspectives.

In 1992, Ariadna married and moved to the Netherlands. Seeking to fill the gaps in Soviet education—which at the time was focused exclusively on craftsmanship— he continued her studies at the prestigious Minerva Art Academy in Groningen, graduating in 1995. Her debut works included insect-inspired chairs, a cardboard armchair, and a competition-winning art object that was exhibited at the newly opened Groninger Museum that same year. She began working as a designer but always at the intersection of design and art, transforming functional objects into installations.

By the early 2000s, Russia was experiencing a construction boom, and Ariadna became one of the most sought-after designers in the country’s new capitalist reality.Nightclubs and high-fashion boutiques had become the artist’s specialization.

During this period, old connections were rekindled, and Ariadna became acquainted with a number of contemporary artists and figures from Moscow’s bohemian scene, including Pavel Pepperstein, Oleg Kulik—whose image and radical performances later inspired the acclaimed film The Square—and Vladislav Mamyshev-Mon-roe, in whose projects Ariadna frequently participated.

By the time Ariadna developed her distinctive artistic style—one that can be classified within the broad movement of Neo-Expressionism—she had already under-gone eleven years of intensive training. Despite this rich and varied foundation, the artist made an unexpected choice—she turned to an intimate, graphic technique,using staged sessions with a model as her source of inspiration. However, in her interpretation, this method underwent significant transformation. She adopted a highly minimalist yet deeply emotional visual language.

Ariadna deliberately abandoned the principle of mimesis—her goal is not to create an accurate depiction of the model but rather to capture an unconscious stream of emotion, a state of being that emerges in dialogue with the model during a posing session. These emotions manifest in abstract anthropomorphic forms.

The posing session transformed into a kind of spiritual séance, a meditation, a shamanistic ritual, with the artist acting as a conduit, channeling energies onto paper.
he subjects of her work vary—figures, torsos, heads, male and female forms, and often paired figures. But one constant remains: her expressive, unmistakable line fluid, alive, pulsating with energy. At times, her lines twist into tangled clusters; at others, they are delicate and fragile, barely sketching out an ephemeral, almost va-nishing image.

In 2013, Ariadna acquired her now-famous White Studio on Marnixstraat—her place of power—which allowed her to fully immerse herself in her artistic practice.
By 2018, Ariadna’s work had moved further away from its original figurative elements. She exaggerated lines and forms, reducing them to abstract compositions. Her new series, created on larger sheets, feature delicate pen lines interwoven with powerful brushstrokes—reminiscent of Pierre Soulages’ graphic work, the Japanese art of the 1950s–60s, and the paintings of Fabienne Verdier.

One of the central themes running like a red thread through Ariadna’s work during this period is the modern human condition—its inner trauma and the unresol-ved dualism of Eros and Thanatos—the simultaneous pursuit of ecstatic joy and absolute suffering, sexual energy and death, the longing for unity and the inescapable solitude, beauty and grotesqueness.

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic began, altering life worldwide for two years. During this time, Ariadna moved to the countryside, to a house near Hilversum, sur-rounded by what was almost a nature reserve. This relocation marked the starting point of a new phase in her artistic practice.

To escape the overwhelming flow of distressing news and anxiety, and to ground herself, Ariadna created a small vegetable garden and began growing her own fruits and vegetables. Spending time in nature, observing plant life, and experiencing the stark contrast between the beauty and harmony of the natural world and the inherently destructive nature of human existence became a new subject of contemplation. This contrast laid the foundation for a new project, where she once again merges painting, photography, and other media.

Education:

Graduated from the Minerva Academy of the Arts
in Groningen, The Netherlands / 1995

Graduated from the Moscow Higher Art School
Stroganov Academie / 1992

Graduated from the Moscow Art School
Memory of 1905 MGAHI / 1988