"Every great artist is both representative of his or her time and an exception to it; every great work, even if it may seem in retrospect to transcend the specific circumstances of its making, comes out of a context."

These words were the epigraph for the Walker Evans photo exhibition at SFMOMA. And since I’ve been thinking about the same issue in reference to my artistic statement, I thought that it would be appropriate to start it with the same words, slightly transforming the main aspect as the point of view of a visual artist. Here it is. Every great artist is the part of the Art History.

I consider myself a serious professional artist and I can’t imagine myself and my paintings out of the context of the World History of Art. Along with my spiritual quest History of Art has always been the major inspiration for me. I can roughly divide my artistic career into three periods.

The first one can be called REMINISCENCES OF SOCIAL REALISM. And include mostly paintings based on the art movement of the Russian Soviet painters from 20-40es of the 20th century, called SOCIAL REALISM. I always tried to keep on the edge of humor, irony and grotesque though.

Second period unfolded when I’ve immigrated to America and started to develop my style, influenced by my animation background. These canvases are filled mostly with cartoonlike characters, or puppets in genre situations. They have a sense of a theater, painted in almost local, bold and bright colors. This period has the name of PUPPET’S SHOW and it started to change when I’ve got bored after working in that manner for quite a while. That style started to seem very artificial and limited to me. What it could offer did not satisfy me any more. Probably because my spiritual growth continued. And puppets were framing my artistic spirit.

That’s when another transformation started to take place, and the third period began, which I call METAPHYSICAL REALISM. The first conscience painting of that period is the CALL WAITING or ANNUNCIATION. Where the search for an absolute BEAUTY is combined with my emotional REBIRTH.

THE BALTIMORE SUN March 11,1993

Re: two Artists show at Galerie Francoise, Baltimore, Maryland.

ZOLOTNITSKY'S BLEND HUMOR AND GRIMNESS, GO FIGURE by John Dorsey Art Critic

"The immediately recognizable is her highly colored palette and technical ability. Native of Moscow who graduated from art college, she is obviously strongly grounded in her discipline. She shows every sign of coming out of a figurative tradition, but uses it in fanciful way.........

Elena Zolotnitsky's five paintings fall into two distinct categories. Three of them are canvases with exaggerated, cartoonlike characters in genre situations. "Peasants Dancing" inevitably reminds one of Peter Bruegel the Elder's "The Peasant Dance", but in its crowding of the scene with figures even more reminicent of the same of the same artist's "The Wedding Dance in the Open Air". This and the other two works in this vein, "Bohemia", and "The Cats" contain humor, but there is a kind of sinister, almost grotesque air about them as well.

The artist's other two paintings here are much more realistic in rendering - in fact their big solid femele figures constitute a parody of Soviet realism - but they also contain symbolism and a somewhat surreal incongrueity. In "The Island - Red Lesbos", women string up mermen by the eyes to a pole, so they hang above the ground. The image would be horrible but fir the humor of it".......

THE ARTIST'S MAGAZINE, october 1995

RE: Top winners from 10 of North America's most prominent regional watercolor societies.

RISING WATERCOLOR STARS by BEBE RAUPE

"Zolotnitsky's imaginative watercolors are meant to pierce a viewer's preconceptions by placing imaginary characters within very detailed, realistic settings.....These transperent watercolor paintings, which are developed around layers of fluid washes and controlled drybrush rendering, are quite challenging. Zolotnitsky says:"You have to be at full attention from the first brushstroke. or else you can ruin the entire painting"......

THE HAPPENINGS Intelligencer Journal, March 7, 1997

Re: CREATING WOMEN. Women's National Juried Exibition at Lancaster Museum of Art, Lancaster, PA

BOLD OR FRACTURED- IMAGES FROM WOMEN'S SELVES by Jennifer Kopf

"Red-scarved women gleefully hang fish out to dry in "Island _Red Lesbos" by Elena Zoltonitsky. Their newest catch, strung up through his empty eye sockets, is half fish, half man. ...... Their oldest catch has metamorphosed into a complete fish."...

ART BUSINESS NEWS, February 1999

Re: ARTEXPO Preview, NYC

RUSSIAN ARTIST GAINS SPEEDY RECOGNITION INTHE U.S.

"Elena has had considerable reception considering the short time she has lived in the U.S.; Zolotnitsky has exhibited her work widely in Washington D.C. and Maryland. Her paintings are facinating blends of Dutch and Italian Renaissance styles, incorporating symbolism from each genre. The artist's work is permanently on display at the Zimmerly Art Museum at Rutgers State University of New Jersey."........