The Russia artist Ilya Motov was born in 1983 in Samara City, which is located on the Volga River.  His parents were doctors and highly educated people.  Many artists used to gather in Ilya’s home as well as journalists, actors, writers and other spiritual people.  It was the kind of atmosphere where Ilya grew up. 

By the time Ilya was in high school, his brother Dmitry was a student in Art College in Kharkov City, Ukraine.  Ilya started to learn to paint at the age of 14.  His first sketches and studies were simple and naïve and he tried to impersonate his older brother.  Through these early works Ilya learned to build composition, work with oil paint and to see light and color.  Ilya visited many museums in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kiev where he admired great talented works by K. Korovin, Savrasov, Monet, Gauguin and others.

In 1999 Ilya entered the well-respected Art College in Kharkov City to continue his education.  In his paintings you can see his admiration for small town and ordinary people, landscapes in the countryside, peaceful images of old Russia.  His special use of colors, texture and unique style, a combination of brush strokes and palette knife, has made his work very interesting and promising for a young artist