4-year-old artist making splash in city

[EnglishLady]

New York Post


While most kids her age are busy playing with Elmo and Dora, Aelita Andre is spending her time giving Andy Warhol a run for his money.

The 4-year-old Australian girl has become an international art-world sensation, producing a formidable collection of abstract paintings that have sold at shows from Italy to Hong Kong for tens of thousands of dollars and earned her comparisons to the greats, like Jackson Pollock and Pablo Picasso.

Aelita has now come to New York with a show starting today that is expected to set the city's art world on fire.


"She's an amazingly talented painter," said Angela Di Bello, owner of the Agora Gallery in Chelsea, where Aelita's show will run until June 25. "Her mind works in the way an established artist or an art critic's would. She is highly intellectual. She just feels everything."

Some of her works for the show have already sold. An Italian collector bought three paintings -- including one called "Asteroid" -- for a total of $27,000. Her most expensive work was one sold in Hong Kong for $24,000.

"She's very excited for her opening . . . She will probably be running around making friends with everyone and singing," said her mom, Nikka Kalashnikova.

Kalashnikova and daddy Michael Andre admit their daughter's visit to New York may be turning her into a bit of an art diva.

"We took her to MoMA yesterday, and she was so upset that we were taking her to see other artists' work instead of going to her own exhibition," Kalashnikova said.

Aelita's inspiration ranges from dinosaurs to the solar system.

"I just do this and this and this but with many colors," she said, waving her hands in circles. "My favorite color is yellow."




http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/the_kid_pre_picasso_2gsqdQmAPlTt7eRPQlIebO

 

[Turtle]

I thought this sounded familiar. Had to dig, but found it, a story from 2 years ago about a 22-month old prodigy who critics don't believe she's doing it all on her own, and that there must be collaboration with the parents. Watch the video.

The critics have all been proven wrong in the intervening two years. Whoops.

Prodigy or pressured? Aussie toddler's art on show | Reuters

(Reuters Life!) - Like most 2-year-olds, Aelita Andre loves to play with paints, but instead of hanging in her room, the Australian toddlers' works are in an art gallery.

Andre, whose parents are both artists, caused a stir in the Australian art scene recently when her paintings went on display in an exhibition in Melbourne alongside works by established adult artists.

The owner of the gallery found out her age only after accepting the works and promoting the exhibit, raising questions about whether Andre is an art prodigy or just a child being helped by her parents.

"There's probably some degree of collaboration between parent and child," said Robert Nelson, art critic and associate professor of art and design at Monash University.

"The colorful backdrop, the calligraphic marks that was probably put there by a parent, that's not the work of a child, certainly not a child of that age," he told Reuters.

Andre's parents, Michael Andre and Nikka Kalashnikova, insist their daughter's works are all her own, and that they noticed her talent on the canvas at an early age.

"I first noticed it in her playgroup when she was doing her water colors on paper. And to me I just naturally saw abstract representations, objects and scenes and various things," father Michael said.

Kalashnikova said she often takes her daughter to art galleries, and gives her canvases and acrylic paints just like other parents provide paper and crayons for their children.

"I don't want to push her into anything," she said.

"I really want her to explain her world, what she sees on canvas, whichever way she sees it, whichever way she wants it, whichever method she uses."

Critic Nelson said that regardless of the controversy, Andre's paintings are a beautiful showcase of the quality of a child's imagination.

"It drew to the public's attention the quality of a child's imagination and the child's interest in art through proactive parents and to me that's a great thing," he added.

Andre's paintings are priced at between $240 and $1,400. Her parents said proceeds from any sale will be put into a trust fund for their daughter.


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And here is an article from the other day. It's a good read, and contains two videos. One is a video from an Australian 60 Minutes segment back when she was 2 years old, and the other is from the other day at the exhibit in New York at age 4. I recommend reading the article, then watching the second video first, the 60 Minutes video, and then watching the first video from the other day. It really makes a difference in that you get to see how she painted as a 2 year old, and now as a four year old, and leaves little room for doubt that she knows what she's doing.

Four-Year-Old Artist Funds College Education with Three Paintings - Entertainment - The Atlantic Wire


And finally, she's got a Web site with several galleries of her paintings. As you scroll through them, you can't help but to notice these were not painted by a child with no idea of what they were doing. There is a balance and a method to what she is wants to accomplish. Some of them are truly astounding, no matter who painted them, but coming from a child, it's surreal.

Aelita Andre Web site