Olga Leonidovna Tolstikova

Born on April 14, 1958 in Moscow. She was a member of the Moscow Union of Artists until 2019, and regularly participated in annual exhibitions of the Russian Union of Artists. For over ten years, she took part in international tapestry exhibitions in the city of Como, Italy. Her solo exhibitions were held in Poland, France, Russia, and the Donetsk People’s Republic.
She was awarded the Silver Medal of the Russian Academy of Arts for creating a series of tapestries between 1998–2001, and received the main jury prize at the Russian Women Artists’ Creative Competition in 2000. Her works are in the State Museum of Heroic Defense and Liberation of Sevastopol, the Museum of Art Textiles (Italy), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Moscow), the Vologda State Museum-Reserve (in the Vologda Kremlin), the Art Fund of the Union of Artists of Russia, and other institutions.
She was awarded the Gold Medal of the Russian Academy of Arts in 2013 for creating a tapestry series.
After finishing school, she enrolled in the painting department of a college of artistic crafts. She always wanted to be a textile artist; therefore, she continued her education at the Moscow Textile Institute.
Before that, she spent two years painting scarves at the Moscow Applied Arts Combine. At the time, it was only possible to enter the Textile Institute after two years of work experience in the field. In 1987, she graduated from the Department of Applied Arts at the A. N. Kosygin Moscow Textile Institute. While still a student, she created her first tapestry, which was exhibited in Bulgaria. Soon after, she found herself in the Vologda village of Fenino, near the village of Kubenskoye in the Vologda district. Rural home, lifestyle, nature, expanses, beauty… “I felt like an artist and gained the confidence of a master in the backwoods of the Vologda region,” says Olga Tolstikova.
At first, it was difficult to get used to the new way of life: you had to stoke the stove and carry water. But now all this is a pleasure and joy. In her house, next to the stove, stands a simple wooden loom on which Olga weaves her magnificent tapestry paintings. “I want to embody the feelings and thoughts that the Vologda land awakens in me,”—these words of the artist take on real form in her monumental works: from 3.5 meters in height to 3–4 meters in width. Creating such a piece takes about a year. Tapestry art is refined but incredibly labor-intensive and painstaking.
“She has found her own expressive language, making her work recognizable and genuinely interesting. Artist Olga Tolstikova, a Muscovite by birth, has been connected by fate and creativity with the Vologda land for more than 20 years, glorifies it in her works, and lives in the village of Fenino, both in winter and summer, on the road from Kubenskoye to the Northern Farm. Her tapestry colors are openly bright, northern log houses are festive, snowy expanses of fields are vast and pure, forests multicolored, and in this she sees the eternal celebration of life, which will remain after us and will also delight someone’s talented soul. Sunshine and the joy of being. Thus, they create an even greater contrast with the sad troubles of our days, with our inability to dispose wisely and fairly of the beauty given to us. Despite everyday difficulties, especially in winter in a remote snowy village, the refined Muscovite here discovered her 'I' in art, found her theme, her colors, her form, and content for her creations. She lives with this wonderful creative enthusiasm. If she did not have a fine artistic taste, the inherited memory in her genes so impressively described by Lev Tolstoy when Natasha Rostova began the Russian dance, if she lacked openness and vitality and many other qualities, the artist would not have taken root in our not-so-sweet lands.” (Vadim Dementyev, writer, secretary of the Union of Writers of the Russian Federation).

Her works are housed in the Art Fund of the Union of Artists of Russia, as well as in private collections in Russia, Italy, and Bulgaria.

1985 International Exhibition of Art Textiles. Bulgaria;
1987 - 1998 Annual Exhibitions of the Moscow Union of Artists;
1995 International Symposium "White Nights". Ethnographic Museum. St. Petersburg;
1996-1998 Annual International Exhibitions of Art Textiles. Como, Italy;
1998 International Art Salon. Moscow.

"Color acts all the more powerfully the simpler it is." — Matisse.
It is difficult to convey in words the experiences and soul states already expressed in the artist’s work.
One of these has long been with me—the feeling of being simultaneously on earth and in the boundless expanse of the universe radiating light.
Light is hope, a connecting thread, love. A particle of this Light burns in each of us—our soul. And each of my works is an appeal to Heaven and Earth.
In the endless space—a rising wail of uplifted, abandoned villages, and those falling asleep under snow like cemeteries.
Disappearing Russia.
I can convey this pain only through my main expressive means—color, brought to extreme tension.
Work on a tapestry is hard, painstaking labor. At the same time, weaving cannot be just a technical process.
For me, a tapestry is a part of the universe, enclosed within the frame of the artwork but not limited by it, developing and continuing in space. In the process, it grows as naturally and freely as a plant.
This is my thought process, my energy invested in every thread. It is important to preserve this impulse throughout the long process and convey it through color.
The richness and depth of color are enhanced by the texture of weaving. Its strength reveals itself only with the contrasting juxtaposition of colors. It is important to find the utmost simple, concise, 'poster-short' solution, which amplifies the brightness of the local color without diminishing its energy with nuances, shades, and light and shadow.