STAY PLAYFUL: The free spirit explores inner and outer worlds in every medium. Pet portraits are a side gig. Her abstracts are thoughtful, but she can easily zero in on bugs in fine detail. 

At 24, Nataliia Shtybel has already had six years of collegiate fine art training, a job as a preschool teacher, and the life-changing experience of moving to the United States from Ukraine after Russia invaded her home country a little over two years ago. Since then, she has lived in Manahawkin, New York City and, now, Harvey Cedars, where the artwork that pours from her is as constant as it is varied.

“The war had shattered the tranquility of her hometown, leaving behind only painful memories and an uncertain future,” according to her artist bio on SaatchiArt.com. “Yet, Nataliia carried with her the resilience of her people, the indomitable spirit that thrives amidst adversity.”

After completing a foundational visual arts program at art college in Ukraine, Shtybel attended Transcarpathian Academy of Arts. She was born an artist and was always in different art-related classes and clubs.

Throughout her education she took drawing, painting, composition and the like, spending time on realism studies of the head and face, the full figure.

“For composition, we would do mostly imaginary works,” she said. “That’s where I think my abstract work comes from.”

Her abstracts are thoughtful, but she can easily zero in on bugs in fine detail.

Most recently, she has shown a collection of her abstract paintings and paper sculpture at the Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts and Sciences’ “Friends We Meet” group exhibition in March. But she applies a broad range of fundamental and digital skills to her other paintings in all mediums, drawings, assemblages, creations, constructions and pet portrait commissions.

The free-spirited, non-commercializing artist said she “can’t stick with just one thing.” Any given project dictates the medium she’ll use.

Partly, her art is an expression of the emotions she has had about the war – healing, along the way, wounds of displacement and loss. A powerful series called “War Crimes” is in the works.

“We are on a stage where we have to identify ourselves as a nation,” she said of Ukraine. “‘What is your identity?’ It’s a big question right now for us. We are a new country. Only 30 years. As a nation we’ve been through a lot, but what are we?”

She also illustrates event posters. 

While in New York, from April to September last year, Shtybel illustrated posters for events within the Ukrainian community there. She fulfills her purpose as an artist by seeing places where her art can be useful and enjoyed and then feeling inspired to make art to suit.

In a world that wants her to fit tidily into a package, “somehow, I can’t really fit,” she said. So, she makes her own rules. When she is onto something, she’s onto it fully; and when she’s over it, she moves on.

A richly detailed 16-by-20-inch oil painting of an oyster shell stands in her home studio as a reminder of a phase she went through.

“It’s just a shell,” she said offhandedly.

One fun project was designing and printing custom seasonal stickers for Black Eyed Susans, where she works. She gifted them to her bosses and coworkers. “Do they need stickers for the season? No, but that’s a nice thing to have!” Shtybel said with a laugh. The fun was reason enough.

Another is her tiny notebooks made of hand-cut paper, properly sewn and bound between real scallop shells. She made a whole batch of them to sell at an entry-level price.

“One period of time, I was really into boxes,” she said – specifically cubes. “They’re all patterns in different colors, and you can play with them. You can see one pattern, and you can change it,” she said. It works no matter how they line up. With 27 cubes, the number of possible unique combinations is staggering. For Shtybel, it was a study in calculation and how patterns work.

Currently rolling around in her mind are ideas for future projects – from how to use horseshoe crab shells to the ancient Slavic winter goddess Mara. She might design a tarot deck.

For now, she shares studio space with LBIF artist-in-residence Linda Ramsay, and this summer Shtybel hopes to lead two weeks of art camp at LBIF. She will also sell her artwork during the Black Eyed Susans weekly outdoor market.

Someday, though she has no concrete plan, Shtybel said, “I want to have my own space, and I like to teach kids.” She is also interested in exploring illustration in Photoshop, where she imports original artwork and manipulates it to a desired effect. The Black Eyed Susans stickers were mostly digital illustrations, she explained, though they started as renderings on paper with pencil and watercolor. She could see going into kids’ book illustration.

She is also learning about UX and UI (user experience, user interface) digital design. And app building. She’s working on her fluency in digital art techniques, knowing it’s an important and marketable skill.

Her main outlet, currently, is her collection of abstract works on heavy paper.

Shtybel plays artfully at every level of detail, from razor-sharp precision to looseness and fluidity of brush strokes, feeling no pressure to define herself. She makes her own deadlines and meets them. She wants her art to speak for itself, without imposing meaning or expectation; but some common themes do emerge along the lines of femininity, self-portraiture and the figure.

The art of it, she said, is how it makes the viewer feel. “Associations are powerful.”

And some works are deeply meaningful, such as “East or West, Home Is Best,” a reflection on nature expeditions with her father.

But Shtybel holds no more attachment to one particular work than another.

“They’re all my kids. I like them all the same,” she said.

See her whole body of work at nataliiashtybel.com.

— Victoria Ford

victoria@thesandpaper.net

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