Dentist creates unique paintings on stones collected worldwide

Elena Priyma from Krasnodar is a dentist by profession, but for over 10 years she has combined her work with unusual creativity. She paints pictures on stones that she finds during her travels across the country and the world.

Recently, Elena opened an exhibition of her works at the Kovalenko Art Museum in Krasnodar. 93.RU attended the exhibition opening and spoke with the artist about how ordinary stones become art in her hands.

‘No one can say I drew it wrong’

Elena Priyma has no art education. As the Krasnodar resident recalls, the desire to paint came to her spontaneously after a trip to Australia, where the dentist opened a ‘creative portal’. At first, Elena painted on canvases, but she always felt something was missing.

‘I wanted something three-dimensional, alive. I went on vacation to the mountains, and the thought came to try painting on stones. A living, real material, it shows itself, opens up to you,’ says the artist.

When the Krasnodar woman took up stone art, she noticed that some masters in the field saw and polish stones, giving them a specific shape, but Elena fundamentally decided not to do this to preserve the natural beauty of the cobblestones.

‘I don’t process the stones, they are as they are—asymmetric, crooked. Therefore, no one can say that I drew an eye or a nose wrong, because the stone is originally of irregular shape, and the drawing on it can be like that. I use only acrylic paints and the golden hands of blacksmith Konstantin Kuzmin, who with a hammer and nails over a fire creates missing elements for me.’

Instead of magnets, she brings stones from travels

The first unusual picture Elena painted was for her friend; in a river, she saw a stone that reminded the artist of her acquaintance’s husband. Now Priyma has over 150 stone works. Grateful patients or friends know for sure that instead of trinkets, it’s better to give the artist stones.

‘There was a time when patients came to appointments with boxes of pebbles, brought stones in their pockets,’ Elena recalls with a smile.

In the collection of the Krasnodar master, there are ‘canvases’ from Peru, Chile, Macedonia, the Solovetsky Islands, the Urals… There was even a stone from Elbrus, which an alpinist brought to Elena in a backpack after ascending.

‘The very large stones I have are from trips around Krasnodar Krai, but from other countries, I sometimes bring them with me. When I’m going on a trip, I take some old uninteresting shoes, things. And on the way, I just throw them out, and instead, I pack stones. At the end of the trip, when the taxi driver pulls my suitcase out of the trunk, he says, “What do you have there, bricks or stones?”’

Putin-stone and Genghis Khan from Lake Baikal

The Krasnodar woman has been painting on stones for 12 years. As Elena says, over this time, everyone has gotten used to her unusual hobby. Sometimes she immediately sees an image in the stones, and other times she spends a long time choosing cobblestones where she can realize her idea. According to Elena, it’s more interesting to paint on stones that have already been ‘shaped by nature,’ creating original roughness.

‘I have a patient—an honored artist with titles, regalia. He was initially skeptical about me painting on stones. But then he started attending my exhibitions, says it’s a new direction, many people like it.’

In Elena’s works, there are fairy-tale and religious motifs and the animal world, but famous personalities are also encountered, for example Vladimir Putin, Charlie Chaplin, or Genghis Khan; for the portrait of the latter, a stone was found in Lake Baikal.

‘I don’t remember exactly why I decided to depict the president, I just saw his facial features in the stone. The same thing happened with Vysotsky. I wasn’t planning to paint him because he has a very complex face, and even artists have difficulty conveying it, but it so happened that I saw his features in the stone and just played along.’

For such creativity, physical preparation is also important, as well as help from friends and relatives. Elena recalls how once she dragged a stone on herself for about five kilometers. In the end, it turned into a bear.

One of the artist’s most beloved creations is a giraffe on a stone with stalactites. It was brought to Elena as a gift from the Azishskaya Cave in Adygea, which is among the top five largest caves in Europe.

So far, Elena has exhibited her works only in the south, but she would like to hold exhibitions in other cities of Russia; one of the main questions is how to deliver everything. Also, the artist dreams of her own workshop, where there would be a permanent exhibition of all her works, and for now, part of the creations can be seen at the Krasnodar Krai Museum of Kovalenko on Krasnaya, 15 (2nd floor).