Abstract Photography Gallery
Tatiana Palnitska

Tatiana was born and raised in Russia, and moved to the United States in 1988. Much of her work has been inspired by the European fine art traditions and concepts. Her "unstill" black and white imagery is really a photographic rendition of the mixed-media pieces, with photography used rather as a "delivery mechanism" – partially because she often uses objects that cannot be preserved (like fruit, vegetables, flowers, etc) and in part because she admires the unifying transformation of the colorful originals into a myriad of monochromatic hues that black-and-white photography offers.

Tatiana uses various backgrounds, including rusted metal panels, art paper, canvas, etc., on which she draws and/or paints with acrylics, oils, charcoal, pastels and other materials, and uses various objects, along with her "signature" masking tape

Frances Hughes Glendening, First Lady of Maryland, with Tatiana at the Women's History Month reception. The exhibit included several pieces shown on this site.

(sometimes utilized as an important part of the composition, like in "Daisies" or "Flower?", and sometimes merely as her "footprint"), creating imagery which has been called "captivating, making your ponder about the future and lament the past" (Cascade Newspaper), "unusual and striking photographic work, …unique vision" (Sabine Magazine of Fine Arts), "truly unique and expressive art form" (Artscape 2000).
Maryland Governor, Parris Glendening, presents Tatiana with the 1999 Maryland State Art Council's Individual Artist Award.

She rarely shows her originals, but when people come to observe them, they often have a hard time making the connection between these large colorful creations and the final imagery – that's how different the 3-dimentional "precursor" looks from the 2-dimentional black and white photograph. "I enjoy the element of surprise inherent in this transformation from color to black and white. Even though I am able to predict the way each color is going to transform in the photograph, I often try to distract from this analysis, to see what will happen. This unstructured approach allows me to create imagery that I would maybe have not attempted, had I thought about it in advance."

Her imagery is in private and corporate collections in the United States, Great Britain, France, Russia, and Ukraine, and several of her works have just been added to the permanent collection of the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. and Museum of Photographic Arts (MoPA) in San Diego, CA. She has exhibited her work extensively around the country and abroad in solo and group shows, including the invitational small group show, "Gardener's Delight," at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., invitational small group exhibition of selected work by Maryland women artists at the Maryland Government House dedicated to Women's History Month curated by D. Bolger from the Baltimore Museum of Art, invitational solo exhibition at the Maryland Symphony Orchestra, numerous juried group shows including those held by the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Holter Museum of Art, Printmaking Council of NJ, Spiva Center for the Arts, Perkins Center for the Arts, Appleton Art Center, Maryland Federation of Art, James Madison University, Montclair State University, and many others.

Her imagery has been published in magazines, catalogs, on catalog and book covers, including those produced by Northwestern University, the Carnegie Museum, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Antietam Review, and many others. This fall, her image will appear on the poster, brochures, program, and all other promotional materials for the 2000-2001 season of the Maryland Symphony Orchestra – a result of a commission which "has given me a chance to combine two of my life-long passions: art and music," says Tatiana, who had over eight years of formal classical piano education in Russia.

She is a recipient of many awards, including Johnson & Johnson Purchase Award and the prestigious Maryland State Arts Council Grant/Individual Artist Award in Photography for 1999 and 2001, an award determined solely on the basis of artistic merit. Tatiana has also been invited on several occasions to speak about her art, vision, and techniques before fine art photography students at such institutions at Maryland Institute, College of Art, and her imagery, displayed on the World Wide Web, has been selected by college and university professors and students from around the world as a subject of study for photography, fine art and abstract art courses.

Tatiana is a graduate of Maurice Torez University, Moscow, Russia, and Sokolniki School, Moscow, Russia. She has also completed courses in photography studies at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, Maryland.

She actively participates in the arts community by serving on the board of the Maryland Federation of Art – a non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of the arts in the local community and to the support of emerging artists, by organizing professional venues for local artists (such as "Artists to Artists" forum), and by participating in various arts-related programs.

In the article which appeared in the Summer 2000 issue of the "Women in the Arts" Magazine, Tatiana describes what really is the quintessence of her vision and artistic approach: "We rarely, if ever, look at what we discard, so we don't see what we don't need. But if we were to look, we would discover a myriad of subtle hues, graceful lines and rich textures. I sometimes think about myself as an advocate for the withered, the unwanted, and the abandoned, helping them to be appreciated by giving them a new meaning. There is always extraordinary in the mundane, just as the opposite is true, and if you respect things not for their function, meaning or value, but for the intrinsic qualities, you'll submerge into a whole new world."