PORTAL OF FREEDOM "...The first paintings are full of cultural references, which does not detract from their independence. On the contrary, Natalia Grigorieva immediately declares her teachers, lovingly and respectfully studying the achievements of the great French of the 19th - from Monet to Cezanne and their Russian followers of the 20th century. Grigorieva started her work not as an experimenter, but as a guardian of values. She has carefully opened the coffer, which stores the artistic achievements of previous eras, and tried on the heritage of the past. At a time when many representatives of the artistic mainstream tried breaking the rules, she was working out the accumulated past, seeking for her own route. Simultaneously investigating the past, the artist carefully observed the live nature in its volatile states, the movement of air, the play of shadows and light. No accidently the art critic Serguei Glagol (1855—1920) inscribed beginning of the 20th century: “Moscow landscape painters left Levitan's school, and this school stole a lot from the hiding places of Russian nature and told us a lot in a very strong way.” Natalia Grigorieva's way, like the way of many Russian artists of the early twentieth century, passes in-between many directions. It is this special position that provides the artist with freedom, originality and allows to fully express the essence. Paying tribute to impressionism, in expression of Michail Herman (1933) "portal of freedom", the artist mastered his techniques and learned his language..."- Alexander Borovsky, MA art history, head of Modern Trends Dept of the State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia.
THE FORCE OF PICTURESQUENESS."Natalia Grigorieva consciously works on the viewer’s perception, activates viewer’s emotional and tactile communication with nature. Such approach requires courage. Today, working in the territory of perceptions and sensations means working against the mainstream, the mainstream formed not only by artists, but also by experts, critics and curators. To shovel against the tide requires strength and confidence as well as paradoxical nonconformity. I am sure such attitude of Grigorieva is sufficiently reflexive. She is quite a modern artist. Not only in terms of education – after graduating from the Academy of Print Art (The Moscow Polygraph Institute) where traditionally since Andrei Goncharov (1903-1979) valued “force of picturesqueness”, she studied in Paris (Institut Parisien de Langue et de civilization Françaises), in Milan (Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti). Her print arts - from textbooks to botanical series and bibliophile editions on art and architecture – indicate the sharpest designer approach and highly professional execution. In short, nothing like naivism or immunity to the realities of modern visual thinking. Therefore, I repeat, the artist attitude is the most principal," Alexander Borovsky, PhD, head of Modern Trends Dept., The State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.
THE NOISE OF SURFACE "... In still life there is always a certain assignment Natalia Grigorieva sets for herself constantly. Kind of implanting into the live nature. In the 1930s in Russia there was a definition of picturesque nature - “surface noise". In artist's paintings there is an equivalent to this "noise" with its ebbs and tides. Though Grigorieva operates not that much the texture, but the movement of the picturesque masses. In the "Onset of Autumn" and "Sweet Peas" there is a fusion of an elusive, mirage-like background. In "Tangerines" - more object painting, the theme of temporality, on the contrary, is set by a certain subject-optical recalculation of all these Christmas toys and fruits: the artist is no longer" chasing "the state of the natural motive, hurrying to" grab " the main thing, but, conversely, seeks to delay, prolong the moment, the moment of "implantation", almost tactile contact with nature ..."- Alexander Borovsky, MA art history, head of the Department of modern trends of the State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.