Natalia Natuka

Born in the Basque country and raised much of her life in London, Natalia Natuka's obsession with the creative arts began when she was a child. Natalia grew up around artists and artisans, becoming turned on to the idea of visionary art very early on. Her father's trips to India in her early life from which he would bring back sacred and strange representations from the lands of his travels awakened Natalia’s interest in Indian culture, influencing her growing multi-cultural perspective about art as a means toward transformation and divine expression.

Natalia’s attempt to study her beloved medium as an academic subject were short lived. She became disillusioned with the ‘art world’, finding little margin for the true depth of self expression which she sleeked to obtain within its academic restrictions. This frustration caused her to stop drawing all together for a period. [On reflection Natalia has commented in interviews that the artistic oppression she believed to be stifling her was in equal parts her own fabricated manifestation as it was a reality. In hindsight she remarks on the adolescent confusion between accepting guidance and rejecting control].

Having ended up studying a degree of little interest to her, Natalia began channelling her energy in to community projects throughout her years at university, working with marginalised groups of society such as the elderly, disabled and children at risk or in care. In these years, through the powerful reflection of the people that Natalia worked with she grew to understand and appreciate the importance and strength of art as a instrument of self expression, social change and personal empowerment. This was the turning point in Natalia’s theoretical understanding of the potency of an artistic practice to a very deep and experiential comprehension of its spectrum of possibilities.

Natalia then moved to Mexico, where she worked as a photographer and teacher, compiling an anthropological collection of images of the local people. During this time Natalia was deeply influenced by the indigenous cultures that surrounded her, captivated by their spiritual and sacred practices. Finding a resonance with their animistic approach to nature and matriarchal devotion, such influences can clearly be seen in her current work.

After returning to England to finish her degree at the University of Exeter, she decided to leave the western world again, this time for India, where she immersed herself into intensive studies of ayurveda, yoga, eastern esoteric philosophy and classical Indian dance (Odissi). Natalia's intended 5 month trip flowed effortlessly in to four years, where the word 'travelling' soon became replaced with that of 'living'. In the monsoon of 2008, while living in the Himalayas Natalia picked up her pen once more and reconnected with herself through the materialisation of a personal visual arts practice. It took many more months before the pages of her sketchbook were opened for anyone elses eyes to see but her own. Since that time Natalia's disciplined art practice has inspired her to create the various galleries presented on this site. Representing her accumulated studies in consciousness, the female body and soul, her own journey within and her unique vision of the world.

Natalia now splits her time equally between India and the west, fully devoted to her practice of self-realization through art.