In Marina Imar’s studio, Pearl Diver is currently on view — a figure caught in mid-jump against an azure field. A vivid orange accent emerges from the calm background like a flash of colour.
“Such a beautiful colour of the sea,” Marina says. “And then — a bright orange spot, like sunlight.”
Pearl Diver was painted in 2025 in acrylic on canvas.
Marina Imar is a Belarusian artist working in painting and graphic art. Over the course of her professional practice, she has participated in more than 50 exhibitions and art projects. Her projects have been presented in Minsk, St. Petersburg, and Moscow. More than 250 of her works have been acquired by private collectors in different countries.
Line Comes First
“Line always comes first.”
The composition begins with a pencil sketch. Marina then works with coloured pencils to establish the main colour relationships before transferring the composition onto canvas and working in acrylic.
This process allows her to define the form, structure, and relationships between colours in advance. At the same time, painting introduces its own changes: acrylic is significantly more intense than coloured pencils, giving the original colour scheme greater strength on canvas.
For Marina, the line is not simply a preparatory stage but the foundation of the composition. The contour defines the figure, while the space surrounding it becomes an equal part of the image.
Figure and Space
This principle is particularly clear in her Sport series. Cyclists, divers, and other figures are captured in motion, yet constructed around precise contours and large fields of colour.
The background is not a secondary element. The interaction between the figure and the surrounding space creates a sense of scale, movement, and visual tension.
Shadows, glazes, and the texture of linen canvas add volume and depth to the surface. It is at this stage that what Marina calls “freedom within the form” emerges — the possibility of moving beyond the original sketch while preserving the underlying compositional structure.
Music in a Still Image
While the Sport series explores movement, the Musicians series poses a different challenge: how to convey the sensation of sound through a static image.
In Rock on the Shamisen, small colour accents appear directly on the strings of the instrument, becoming a visual suggestion of sound.
Each series therefore develops around its own artistic question while sharing the same visual language — line, form, colour, and the interaction between figure and space.
Pearl Diver
In Pearl Diver, movement and colour work together.
The figure’s contour was established in the preliminary sketch and transferred to the canvas with almost no changes. The colour scheme was also determined beforehand, but the contrast became significantly more intense in the finished painting.
The combination of azure and orange creates a tension between the calm space of the background and the movement of the figure. For Marina, the important element is not simply whether individual colours harmonise, but how colour fields relate to one another — their balance, contrast, tension, and interaction within the composition.
Series as Distinct Visual Worlds
Alongside Sport and Musicians, important bodies of work in Marina’s practice include Avant-Garde Cats, St. Petersburg, and Geometry.
Avant-Garde Cats began as a graphic project and is now also developing in the direction of digital art. In this series, Marina combines geometric structure, visual irony, and elements of Japanese aesthetics. The cat becomes not simply a character, but part of a compositional system and an independent visual world.
In 2026, digital works became a distinct direction within Marina’s artistic practice, developing alongside her painting and graphic work.
The St. Petersburg series developed through several exhibition projects. The exhibition Above & Below was presented in St. Petersburg in 2022–2023 and in Moscow in 2024. Another project, Radiation and Hallucination, was presented in St. Petersburg in 2019–2020.
Marina’s works have also been exhibited at Winzavod Center for Contemporary Art, the Central House of Artists, and Sheremetyevo Airport as part of the Flying Machine project. Her works are held in the collection of the Mitki-Art Museum in St. Petersburg and in private collections in different countries.
The Formation of an Artistic Language
In 2017, Marina received diplomas from the Union of Artists of St. Petersburg and the Union of Artists of Belarus. In 2018, her work was recognised by ART Czech Republic, and in 2019 by the Moscow Union of Designers.
Over time, line, geometric construction of form, active colour, and the use of space have developed into a distinctive artistic system.
What Remains Constant
At the foundation of Marina Imar’s method is a simple sequence:
line → form → colour → space.
Yet this structure leaves room for freedom. The sketch establishes the foundation of the work, while the material, the texture of the canvas, and the intensity of acrylic paint allow the image to evolve during the painting process.
For Marina Imar, painting begins with line, but colour transforms structure into a living image. Her work combines precise composition, dynamic form, and expressive colour, creating a distinctive visual language in which familiar subjects acquire a new resonance.
More works and available artworks by Marina Imar can be found on her Mondoir Studio profile.
Discover more of Marina Imar's work and available pieces on their Studio profile.
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