Liliya Popova studied art in Yakutia and at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. She combines in a masterly fashion traditions of nature-religion from her homeland with traditions from the modern western world, drawing upon the academic Russian approach while reflecting and illuminating the Oriental-Asian mythology of her own Sakha people.

This "czarist-shamanistic" approach, which is Liliya Popova's chosen and finely developed path, generates esoteric figures and structures on three levels:

• Humankind in a blossoming harmony with nature
• Woman's secret/sacred oneness with light and life
• The magic energy of invisible worlds

Liliya Popova offers us an unfettered artist's authentic symbols - the white lilies of melancholy, the girl in cool blue evoking the ephemeral nature of being, lights as spiritual lodestars (Aan Alakhtschin Khotun) and much else. All are combined with the depiction of shamanist attributes; all grow into riddles and then into mystery, independent yet reciprocal. They stimulate viewers to develop thoughts, feelings and interpretations of their own.

Thus not only is artistic sensibility and matter offered to the viewer; through them imagination is rekindled - and a veritable lecture in esthetics can be absorbed and considered.

Hans-Michal Rupprechter
Alpha-Jetzt Gallery, Stuttgart, Germany
1996