Ella Charette, formerly Ella Ogorodnikova was born on May 13, 1978 in the city of Ufa in the republic of Bashkortostan in Russia.   Ella’s artistic talent was discovered at a very early age, at 1 year old, her mother Elena discovered her great abilities to paint.  Since that time Ella’s house was always full of paints, water colors, pencils, pastel crayons and sketch-books.  She used to draw everywhere at that time: at home, outside in the yard, visiting her friends or waiting somewhere with her mother.

Her favourite sketch-book and a crayon were always with her. Every day she surprised her mother with new sketches from her real life.  They were truly childlike but sometimes Ella’s mother was amazed by the deep meaning her daughter put into her works.  After passing the primary school Elena decided to start developing her inherent talent professionally.  Ella entered the special art school for gifted children and stayed there for 3 years.  Besides all the mandatory school subjects, children were taught the basics of drawing and painting technique, sculpture and modeling.

By the time Ella was 12 she clearly realized her future and her destination.  Ella never doubted and when graduating the art school she entered art college for 5 years.  The Ufa Art College used to be the forge of brilliant painters.  Many of its students have become well known in Russia and abroad.  There Ella continued studying oil and acrylic painting, pastel crayon and charcoal drawing, engraving, etching and lithography technique.

After graduating from the Ufa Art College, Ella continued her studies by entering the Faculty of Arts and Graphics of the State Pedagogical University in Ufa.  She took courses in world art culture, history of fine arts, descriptive and prospective geometry, industrial, designing and technical graphic arts, sculpture and plastic anatomy.  Her university professors gave her much understanding in the historical art development and they introduced her to art trends of the past leading to the present.  Going deeper to the art science she realized that she was also to be the part of that.  Ella has 11 years of formal art education attained the title of Master with oil and graphic art.

Ella truly believes that the abilities are given her by the God, but her mother helped to nurture them and became her first and permanent advisor, supporter and a grateful observer and admirer.

Since the time her mother presented Ella with a professional easel, Ella spent all her free time somewhere outside: in her neighboring park with a small but wonderful pond with wild ducks, on the river bank which was also nearby or just in an open country.  Ella fell in love with nature, landscape painting became her first professional love which she maintains.

While still in study, Ella had a burning hunger to expand her talents and go beyond her teachings.  She tried to acquire different kinds of techniques and hone them under her professors’ instruction.  Ella traveled to the Russian cultural centers with the aim of visiting famous Russian art galleries, museums and architectural masterpieces.  In her travels Ella met various Russian artists.  All of which gave her new ideas, conceptions, thinking and understanding.

In Moscow Ella visited an international exhibition of graphic art which roused her interest in graphics.  She had worked with graphic art before but only after that exhibition did Ella realize how boundless graphic art was.  When returning Ella created many graphic art works.  Three of Ella’s works were picked for the 1998 Annual Art Exhibition of young artists of Bashkortostan in which the theme of the exhibition was “The White River” (The White River is a famous river that runs through Ufa and is a source of water for much of Bashkortostan.).

In 1997 Ella met Sergei Krasnov, one of Russia's most famous modern artists.  She spent much time in his studio observing him working and studying different kinds of techniques Krasnov used in his pictures.  Generally speaking, Ella is sure that every painter she had met on her way left their footprints in her artistic life. Everyone taught her something new and contributed to her formation as an artist.

Ella is not only a talented painter; she is a very good teacher, eager to share her knowledge with other people.  Since 1995 she has worked with children in a preprimary school teaching them painting and plasticine modeling for 8 years.  It might be her school young students who gave her a push to participate in the 2000 and 2002 in the exhibitions of caricatures held under the authority of the Taxation Ministry in which she won the first place each time.

At present Ella has art works held in the private art collections throughout Russia, Europe, Canada and USA.  All of them are different and made in various genres: landscapes, abstractionism, surrealism and others using conventional and non-conventional mediums.  She doesn’t limit herself only in painting. In the list of her art works you will find works from clay and ground lithography.

Ella currently resides in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with her husband Gilles.  Ella works throughout the days to meet the demands of Canadian art Galleries, as Canadians are responding to Ella's work with great demand.

           

http://www.virtualexhibition.ca