Natasha Lelenco

Natasha Lelenco, born in Chișinău, Moldova in 1982, is a prominent Moldovan painter and contemporary artist who has been residing in Galicia, Spain, since 2008. She is especially known for her figurative work, particularly in the realm of portraiture. Holding a degree in Fine Arts from the University of Cluj-Napoca in Romania, her art has been featured in numerous international exhibitions and art fairs. Natasha Lelenco's art has been showcased across exhibitions in Spain, Germany, Denmark, Portugal, Mexico, and beyond. Natasha Lelenco's approach is figurative, primarily centered on the human form, which she understands as an integral part of life rather than its core. Her themes encompass identity, self-awareness, and the role of chance in shaping the value of things and life itself. Her artistic journey has given rise to self-contained series where narrative and format harmonize, often springing from a playful interplay of repetition, color juxtapositions, deformations in pursuit of psychological realism, and a selective use of elements and resources available in her studio. A recurring motif in her work is the creation of panels, which, through repetitive use of representations, weave a narrative. The visual motif of repetition, especially in the portrayal of faces, represents a graphic fixation that captures a world characterized by seriality. To depict this, she frequently draws inspiration from popular art, advertising, and kitsch. The resulting imagery often strikes a tragicomic chord. She finds solace in project-based work, and virtually all her endeavors since dedicating herself professionally to artistic creation revolve around narratives materializing in pieces that often seek to function both collectively and independently.

An elegant and sophisticated decorative touch in any living space, portrait paintings have remained popular throughout the years and are widely loved pieces of art for display in many homes today.

Portrait paintings are at least as old as ancient Egypt, where realistic, lifelike depictions of the recently deceased — commonly known as “mummy portraits” — were painted on wooden panels and affixed to mummies as part of the burial tradition.

For centuries, painters have used portraiture as a means of expressing a subject’s nobility, societal status and authority. Portraits were given as gifts in Renaissance Europe, and a portrait artist might have been commissioned to help mark a significant occasion such as a wedding or a promotion to high office. Prior to the advent of photography, which eventually replaced painted portraits as a quicker and more efficient way of capturing a person’s essence, the subject of a portrait had to sit for hours until the painter had finished. And during the 18th century in particular, if an artist commissioned for a portrait struggled with how to adequately memorialize and capture a subject’s likeness, sometimes a portrait painting wasn’t completed for up to a year.

Whether it’s part of the gallery-style approach to your living-room or dining-room walls or merely inspiration as you devise an eye-grabbing color scheme in your home, a portrait painting is a timeless decorative object for any interior. A landscape painting or sculpture might give you the kind of insight into a specific region of the world or a different culture that you can ascertain only through art. Similarly, when you take the time to learn about the subject of a portrait painting that you bring into your home — the sitter’s history, the relationship between the sitter and the artist should one exist, the story of how the portrait came to be — that work can become intensely personal in addition to its place as an object for an art-hungry corner of your apartment or house.

On 1stDibs, visit a vast collection of famous portrait paintings or works by emerging artists. Search by medium to find the right portrait paintings for your home in oil paint, synthetic resin paint and more. Find portrait paintings in a variety of styles, too, including contemporary, Impressionist and Pop art, or search by artist to find unique works created by painters such as Mark Beard, Steve Kaufman and Montse Valdés.