Natalia Osipov

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Natalia Osipov-Turkenich is a passionate and committed artist, art educator, poet, writer, and illustrator. She won multiple awards for her artwork and writing, and received great recognition for the success of her art school, and her involvement in the Russian-Canadian art community of Toronto. She has over 30 years of artistic experience in Russia, Germany, Israel, and Canada where she had solo and group exhibitions, taught art to kids and adults, and worked on various private and public projects.

Natalia began a new journey upon graduating from the Nicolai Fechin Art Academy in 1986, where she received her degree in fine arts and education. The Fechin Academy, founded in 1895, was a branch art school of the Imperial Academy of Arts, St. Petersburg, which was founded in 1757. Natalia continues the classical tradition of representational art within her own work, and she equips her students with the same necessary fundamental art skills including the knowledge of world art history. All of her students learn to be independently creative, and some have pursued successful art careers in Canada and the US.

When Natalia moved to Toronto with her family in 2001, she started to closely work with the Russian-Canadian Youth Theater of Toronto (RCTCC). For every individual play she created unique concept sketches, and designed and painted the sets and props. She also designed the costumes for all of the dancers and actors. Some of the plays at the theater were classical children stories like “Cinderella”, famous fairytales such as Brothers Grimm’s, “Town Musicians of Bremen”, and Russian Tales such as “Cat House”, and “The Twelve Months”. With time, the theater incorporated more mature actors and there were more complex plays such as Evgeny Schwartz’s, “Dragon”, Alexander Griboyedov’s, “Woe from Wit”, and Boris Vasilyev’s, “Tomorrow Was the War”. Every play had a distinct image that echoed a certain time in history, took the viewer to a specific place, and resonated a certain kind of mood.   

Today Natalia’s main focus is her art school, “Natalia’s Art School”, which was founded in 2001, and her own artwork. Throughout the year she teaches kid and adult classes and workshops and helps host special corporate events at her studio. Over the years Natalia developed a successful method of teaching that is very effective, as it caters to various individual needs. She easily inspires curiosity and can teach anyone how to paint! With her own work, she constantly explores different themes and experiments with painting techniques and art materials.