Maria Hazanskaia

Maria Hazanskaia, working under the name Hazart, creates figurative paintings that explore inner experience: fear, freedom, belonging and the search for oneself. Working in oil on canvas, sometimes with acrylic and textured materials, she gives emotions a tangible form through the human figure, symbolic colour and richly worked surfaces.

Her paintings begin with lived experience. A child at play becomes an image of unguarded joy; a gathering of artists becomes a home beyond time and borders; a figure moving towards darkness becomes a reflection on courage. Within her series Only for the Mad, painting is a way to explore the distance between what we see and what we feel.

Her practice brings painting and performance into the same space. Maria paints nude: the body, movement and time at the easel are part of the work. Many paintings are filmed as they take shape, so each finished canvas opens onto the gestures and hours behind it. Alongside the figurative work, she makes abstract pieces in which colour and texture take the foreground.