‘It’s like breathing for me’
Published 10:45 am Thursday, November 17, 2016
- JORDAN MILES | HERALD Nataliia Berezhaya stands with her art at Fuqua.
On the other side of the world lies Kyrgyzstan, a small nation in Central Asia nestled between China’s eastern border and Kazakhstan’s southern border some 8,000 miles away from Farmville.
It’s the birthplace of Nataliia Berezhaya — a 17-year-old senior at Fuqua School — and where her artistic seeds were sewn.
JORDAN MILES | HERALD
An oil on canvas portrait of a woman by Berezhaya.
“I just always liked to draw, and I’ve been drawing since I can remember,” said Berezhaya. “I just started doing it and trying new techniques here.”
This is Berezhaya’s second year studying at Fuqua, and she looks forward to graduating in the spring.
“I just can’t even see myself without doing it right now, because I do it all the time,” she said, sitting in the school’s art classroom in front of her laptop computer, filling out college applications online. “I don’t know. It’s like breathing for me. It’s like art is a piece of me — like my left hand.”
After a very competitive, months-long and multi-phased application process through the Future Leaders Exchange scholarship student exchange program administered by the U.S. Department of State, she was able to come to Farmville and share her acclaimed talent.
While in Kyrgyzstan, Berezhaya studied art and architecture. Her intense studies stand out in her artistic skills, touted as highly advanced by her art teacher and student peers at Fuqua.
Berezhaya’s mediums include oils on canvas, charcoal, pencil and watercolors.
“Basically all types of paints,” she said, adding oil on canvas is her favorite.
She says she’s able to express herself through her art.
JORDAN MILES | HERALD
Berezhaya’s favorite piece — a portrait of a young man — employs hyperrealism.
“It’s my first … hyperrealistic painting,” she said of her favorite piece on canvas, featuring a young man.
“When a student walks through the door and they’ve got the ability like that, you realize you are seeing something really special,” said Forrest Layne, Berezhaya’s art teacher, who’s been teaching for four years. “I think she instantly became the school artist.”
According to Layne, Berezhaya has painted murals for the school, and other pieces for her peers and their families.
“I think they’re inspired to make their own work a little bit more along those lines,” Layne said of her impact on other students. “I think she’s going to wind up making her living off of this artwork. It’s that good. Her drive is that strong. Her natural ability is that good. I’m looking at a future artist at a very early stage in her career, and that’s just kind of fascinating.”
According to Layne, Berezhaya can also sculpt. “She’s not limited to any medium.” He said she has “brains and the conceptual creativity.”
“I think Nataliia embodies all of what’s good about having an international program and focusing on diversity and inclusion in the school,” Fuqua Head of School John Melton said. “(She’s) engaged in really anything the school had to offer.”
He said while exchange programs offer opportunities “for the underprivileged child or this child of a different race or this child of a different religion … in reality, they’re bringing something to you. And she is that person.”
Melton said Berezhaya has shined at Fuqua and “engaged, not just in doing projects that have improved the appearance of our campus, but leading the orchestration of those projects with younger kids in the middle school.”
JORDAN MILES | HERALD
Berezhaya has not only inspired her peers through her personal art but through her murals around Fuqua’s campus. She painted the words and falcon symbol on this building.
Berezhaya is a hard worker, Melton said.
“She’ll lean into a situation and make it happen,” he said.
