For multidisciplinary artist Anastasya Martynova, nature is not just a subject—it’s a dialogue, a devotion, and a source of emotional truth. In her recent series, Love Notes to Nature and Fractured, Martynova draws from the physical world and spiritual philosophies to explore the beauty of light, the complexity of emotion, and the quiet power of process.

We sat down with Martynova to discuss her evolving body of work, her deeply personal techniques in gilding, and the philosophies that shape her luminous, layered canvases.

A Love Letter to the Natural World

"Nature is an endless source of inspiration for me—a constant thread that weaves through all of my work," Martynova tells us. It’s a sentiment that underpins her Love Notes to Nature series, which began as a collection of small, gilded paintings capturing the fleeting interplay of light and colour.

Those early works—intimate and abstract—have since expanded in both scale and ambition. “They've grown into expansive pieces,” she says, “encompassing entire scenes, both real and imagined.” Specific places serve as anchors: the Coromandel Peninsula in New Zealand (Memories of Hahei), the Sierra Nevada in the U.S. (The Sobering Gifts of Lake Tahoe), and other dreamlike vistas that seem to hover between the tangible and the emotional.

These paintings aren’t about documentation; they’re about resonance. “This body of work seeks to express not just what is seen, but what is felt.”

The Gilded Surface: Crafting Light and Texture

What makes Martynova’s work stand apart visually is her singular, self-developed technique—an alchemical blend of traditional gilding and contemporary abstraction.

Each piece begins with a foundation of copper leaf, a base that shimmers with organic warmth. From there, she builds subtle reliefs with sculptural texture, layering metal leaf—gold, silver, copper, and coloured alloys—with rich pigments. The result is a surface alive with light.

“I’m particularly drawn to the luminosity that metal leaf imparts,” she explains. “Its ability to catch and reflect light imbues each piece with a sense of movement and vitality. Different in day and night.” In this way, her works shift and evolve depending on their environment, echoing the transience of nature itself.

Embracing the Breaks: The Fractured Series

While Love Notes to Nature reflects Martynova’s dialogue with the external world, her Fractured Series turns inward—toward the cracks, breaks, and stillness required to hold things together.

Inspired by kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending pottery with gold, these pieces embrace imperfection and transformation. “The gold line, a recurring motif, is drawn from Buddhist teachings,” she notes, “where equanimity is regarded as one of the highest emotional states: abundant, exalted, immeasurable, without hostility and without ill-will.”

In these works, Martynova uses traditional gesso as a foundation—a painstaking process of layering and tinting to achieve a marble-like surface that is, paradoxically, then cracked and distressed. Gilding is then applied to those broken lines, turning what was once a flaw into the focal point.

“There’s a tension between fragility and resilience that I try to express,” she says. “These pieces are meditations on balance—how we hold ourselves together amid fragmentation.”

Tradition Reimagined

What makes Martynova’s practice remarkable is her ability to take centuries-old techniques—gilding, gesso, relief—and make them feel fresh, emotionally charged, and contemporary. Her works don’t just shimmer; they reflect—offering windows into natural landscapes and internal landscapes alike.

Whether she’s tracing the contours of a memory, the glow of a sunset, or the golden seam of a healed wound, Anastasya Martynova invites viewers to slow down, look closely, and feel deeply.

“Metal breathes life into the surface,” she says. And with it, her work breathes life into what lies beneath.