Larisa Belima is a painter and graphic artist whose work is known for its expressive colour, theatrical composition, and dreamlike emotional atmosphere. Born in Ukraine and now based in Moscow, she studied at the Faculty of Art and Design at Moscow Technological University, graduating in 1989. Since the early 1990s, Belima has taken part in numerous exhibitions and artistic projects in Russia and internationally. She is a member of the Moscow Union of Artists, the Union of Russian Artists, and the International Art Fund.
Her paintings often move between figuration and abstraction, creating poetic scenes where memory, fantasy, and emotion seem to unfold at once.
Belima’s visual language is rich in texture and colour, with figures that appear both intimate and symbolic. Her compositions often feel like staged moments, where characters, animals, and ornamental detail come together to form a world of quiet drama and imagination.
Travel and observation have played an important role in her practice. Her works reflect an openness to atmosphere, place, and sensation, transforming lived impressions into layered painterly narratives. Critics have noted the emotional force of her colour and her ability to convey mood more powerfully than literal reality.
The work presented in this exhibition, Ceremonial portrait of the king, is an unusual and striking example within Belima’s wider body of work, which is more often associated with expressive abstraction, layered colour, and atmospheric composition. Here, she turns toward a more figurative and symbolic language, depicting a crowned rider beside a luminous white horse. With its warm golden tones, ornate red garment, and dreamlike theatricality, the painting suggests dignity, vulnerability, and transformation, while still retaining the emotional intensity and rich surface texture that define her practice.
Belima’s work offers a vivid celebration of imagination and inner life. Through colour, texture, and symbolic figuration, she creates paintings that feel both theatrical and emotionally sincere.