Interview with Nina Vakueva
- Cista Arts team
- Apr 9
- 5 min read
An interview with comics and watercolour painter Nina Vakueva.
What initially sparked your interest in pursuing art, and how has your journey evolved since then?
I’ve been drawing as long as I remember myself. At home in countless albums, outside with a chalk on the asphalt, in school in the margins of my notebooks. I was completely mesmerised by illustrations in children books and by the collection of folk tales from around the world that we had at home, and it was the fantasy world full of magic and adventures that fueled my passion for art. After I’ve made art my profession and switched my focus to accommodating the clients, some of that magic slowly went away and was replaced by all the different worries artists have to deal with. Adulthood doesn’t go well with escapism, however it gives you the necessary life experience to bring depth into your art and stories. When you’re channeling what’s personal and important to your through your art, it resonates more deeply with other people. That’s why my main focus these days is bringing back some of that magic of creating from when I was a kid and merging it with the skill and knowledge that I acquired over the years.
These days my main focus is bringing back some of that magic of creating from when I was a kid and merging it with the skill and knowledge that I acquired over the years.
Can you tell us about a specific piece of your artwork that holds particular significance to you, and what inspired its creation?
It’s «Dream Wanderer» for me. I created this piece in 2024, and it combines inspiration both from real life and from my childhood fantasy world, and also signifies the start of me returning to my original ideas and dedicating more time and effort to bringing them to life. As long as I remember myself, I've been seeing long vivid dreams every night. My favourite ones were about travelling to different locations - old towns, vast fields, dark forests and ocean coasts. Sometimes in those dreams I was accompanied by other dream wanderers. Up to these days these dreams fuel my imagination, and in this artwork I mixed inspiration from my current surroundings with memories of those dreams.
How do you navigate the balance between staying true to your artistic vision and experimenting with new techniques or styles?
I don’t think such balance is something artists need to actively worry about, as long as they’re not trying to replace their own ideas and passions with someone else’s. If you’re staying true to your subject and looking for what resonates with you personally, why not give new tools or technique a go? I love working with black ink just as much as with watercolours and pencils, and different tools are helping me to bring out different aspects of a drawing.
Style usually is something beginner artists struggle with, but the thing is - it always forms with time. It might seem like a huge problem when you want your art to look a certain way, especially when you have several inspirations and can’t choose which one to follow, so your style ends up fluctuating. But the more you draw, the more you form your personal shortcuts and vision, and the more it shows through your drawings. I used to be worried that my drawings in different techniques looked different, but now I give it time and trust the process.
It might seem like a huge problem when you want your art to look a certain way, especially when you have several inspirations and can’t choose which one to follow, so your style ends up fluctuating. But the more you draw, the more you form your personal shortcuts and vision, and the more it shows through your drawings.
What role do you believe art plays in society, and how do you envision your work contributing to the artistic dialogue?
The thing about art is that is has so many different forms, that it expends far beyond just one role. I think its role also changes with the age of the audience. Personally I would like my art to speak to the young adult audience and to adults looking for an escape and light-hearted emotions. My artistic journey is rooted in my own experiences as a young adult. I remember myself at that age and how books, animation and art helped me to navigate through the difficult times, how they inspired me to create and also served as a refuge. Through art and stories I would like to offer people moments of peace, laughter, and inspiration.
My artistic journey is rooted in my own experiences as a young adult. I remember myself at that age and how books, animation and art helped me to navigate through the difficult times, how they inspired me to create and also served as a refuge.
Are there any upcoming projects or themes that you're excited to explore in your future artworks, and if so, what draws you to these ideas?
That definitely would be my own graphic novel. It was a project that I started years ago in university, but at that time I didn’t have enough skills or plans to develop it into a full project with solid ideas. Right now I’m working on fully rebooting it with an improved story and character arcs. It took me several years to find a topic that I personally care about enough to make it a core of a whole novel. The main idea of my graphic novel circles around the meaning of creativity in our lives, and these days with AI being a huge topic among artistic circles, I want to put focus on the process of creating, to remind people that the process is just as important as the final product. The process is an essential part of creativity, it is for us to live through, to learn from, to escape reality, to know ourselves better. This is a message I care deeply about and it would make me happy if it inspired someone to try out a new hobby or draw something for fun, and enjoy the feeling of creating something by the power of their fantasy.
How do you hope your art will impact viewers, and what message or emotion do you aspire to convey through your creative expressions?
I’d love my art to be light-hearted and fun, to be an escape from the hardships we face. It’s a tribute to my fantasy world I created as a child and an encouragement for others to dream and fantasise!
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