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Macha BELSKY
Painter artist
These recent years I have spent my time painting, from morning to night, without a single day of rest or a week’s holiday. It’s because I have no time to lose! I feel I must make up for the time passed devoted to a single cause: trying to bring into full being my autistic son.
It was such that the day supposed to be the happiest in the life of all women, the birth of her first child, was for me the worst of days.
For all that came afterwards was but a war against illness, a long battle to save my son.
. . .
This was long ago, when Russia was still called the Soviet Union. Even in Moscow, where I was born, there was practically no provision for the problems of parents like myself, nowhere that could lend them a hand or help them in their struggle against the illness that menaced their child. In the Russia of the beginning of the 90s even the term autism was almost unheard of.
As a young mother I had quickly realized that something was amiss with my son Ilya and this realization sounded the end of my unthinking serenity.
I had to give up my career as an architect in Moscow to become a fulltime mother, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.
The verdict of the Soviet doctors was of implacable cruelty: My son would forever be incapable following any serious course of studies whatsoever. The future became dark.
Nevertheless, I have never accepted this verdict. Also, at that moment, I decided have my child cared for in another country.
My husband and I spent much time deciding which country to choose. In the end it was, only France that came to our aid. Until the end of my days, I will never forget that this was the country that saved my son.
In 1996 we came to live in Lyon.
My husband, a physician, very quickly found work. As for myself, I was committed entirely to my children: my son, of course, and my daughter Sonia, who was born in perfect health and who is now an actress, having successfully studied at the “Cours Florent de Paris”.
When we arrived in Lyon neither I nor my children spoke a word of French. We had neither friends nor family – life was difficult.
Bu that which counted the most was that the French doctors did their utmost to help my son and that their efforts were crowned with success.
The French teachers and educationalists have done great work. This is without speaking of the generous associations, women and men who have helped us throughout our years in Lyon.
A big thank you to all.
In 2013 my son obtained an ES Baccalaureate and today works in the computer world.
He’s a big hearted young man, practically autonomous and who lives his adult life.
. . .
And what about myself?
A great slice of my life was devoted to my son and my efforts in adapting to a new country.
Ten years ago, when life began to look hopeful, I began painting again. I painted a lot, as in the days before the birth of my son. I didn’t have studio in Lyon but that didn’t matter: I set up my easel in the living room, bought all sorts of paint and at last started my TRUE LIFE…
The principal theme of my work?
That, of course is Lyon’s architecture: the beauty of this town where my son was saved and where I found the happiness and fulfilment of the artist who lives from and for her art.
It’s true, that here I never could use my skills as an architect, but instead decided to study the architecture of Lyon, to paint this ancient and venerable town, a town that had immediately encompassed me – an inspiration at first sight. I told myself that I was going to demonstrate its particularly bewitching beauty in my paintings.
. . .
I have my own notions about painting.
For me, buildings are so many living beings that lead their lives and discuss among themselves. For this reason that in my paintings they seem to lean and curve and even to move.
Maybe this comes from childhood memories, for as a child, I believed that all the things about me were alive.
In my paintings there are no human beings, no cars. They contain buildings alone as the essential elements of the urban landscape. For us humans exist but briefly, while the buildings reside immovably for several centuries as they observe the passing generations of humanity.
I seek to represent in this town the breath of old stone, there where the serene imbues all, where one listens to silence and lives solitude.
Maybe it’s the upsets and sorrows I have lived through that have given birth to the tension and strength of my pictures. One suspects, it seems to me, that something is happening: one feels some adjacent drama.
A broken perspective leads the spectator into the depths of these paintings.
Nevertheless, sky and sunshine are always there. For they are a necessary hope that shines at the end of the tunnel.
. . .
I waited for such a long time the moment when I could once more begin to paint and it’s because of this that today I find it difficult to drag myself away from before my easel.
Before, to express myself, to work was impossible and now I find this freedom to be truly great.
I have things to express such as , suffering, solitude and desolation, but also joy, exaltation and happiness.
All this is to be found in my paintings.
Macha BELSKY
It was such that the day supposed to be the happiest in the life of all women, the birth of her first child, was for me the worst of days.
For all that came afterwards was but a war against illness, a long battle to save my son.
. . .
This was long ago, when Russia was still called the Soviet Union. Even in Moscow, where I was born, there was practically no provision for the problems of parents like myself, nowhere that could lend them a hand or help them in their struggle against the illness that menaced their child. In the Russia of the beginning of the 90s even the term autism was almost unheard of.
As a young mother I had quickly realized that something was amiss with my son Ilya and this realization sounded the end of my unthinking serenity.
I had to give up my career as an architect in Moscow to become a fulltime mother, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.
The verdict of the Soviet doctors was of implacable cruelty: My son would forever be incapable following any serious course of studies whatsoever. The future became dark.
Nevertheless, I have never accepted this verdict. Also, at that moment, I decided have my child cared for in another country.
My husband and I spent much time deciding which country to choose. In the end it was, only France that came to our aid. Until the end of my days, I will never forget that this was the country that saved my son.
In 1996 we came to live in Lyon.
My husband, a physician, very quickly found work. As for myself, I was committed entirely to my children: my son, of course, and my daughter Sonia, who was born in perfect health and who is now an actress, having successfully studied at the “Cours Florent de Paris”.
When we arrived in Lyon neither I nor my children spoke a word of French. We had neither friends nor family – life was difficult.
Bu that which counted the most was that the French doctors did their utmost to help my son and that their efforts were crowned with success.
The French teachers and educationalists have done great work. This is without speaking of the generous associations, women and men who have helped us throughout our years in Lyon.
A big thank you to all.
In 2013 my son obtained an ES Baccalaureate and today works in the computer world.
He’s a big hearted young man, practically autonomous and who lives his adult life.
. . .
And what about myself?
A great slice of my life was devoted to my son and my efforts in adapting to a new country.
Ten years ago, when life began to look hopeful, I began painting again. I painted a lot, as in the days before the birth of my son. I didn’t have studio in Lyon but that didn’t matter: I set up my easel in the living room, bought all sorts of paint and at last started my TRUE LIFE…
The principal theme of my work?
That, of course is Lyon’s architecture: the beauty of this town where my son was saved and where I found the happiness and fulfilment of the artist who lives from and for her art.
It’s true, that here I never could use my skills as an architect, but instead decided to study the architecture of Lyon, to paint this ancient and venerable town, a town that had immediately encompassed me – an inspiration at first sight. I told myself that I was going to demonstrate its particularly bewitching beauty in my paintings.
. . .
I have my own notions about painting.
For me, buildings are so many living beings that lead their lives and discuss among themselves. For this reason that in my paintings they seem to lean and curve and even to move.
Maybe this comes from childhood memories, for as a child, I believed that all the things about me were alive.
In my paintings there are no human beings, no cars. They contain buildings alone as the essential elements of the urban landscape. For us humans exist but briefly, while the buildings reside immovably for several centuries as they observe the passing generations of humanity.
I seek to represent in this town the breath of old stone, there where the serene imbues all, where one listens to silence and lives solitude.
Maybe it’s the upsets and sorrows I have lived through that have given birth to the tension and strength of my pictures. One suspects, it seems to me, that something is happening: one feels some adjacent drama.
A broken perspective leads the spectator into the depths of these paintings.
Nevertheless, sky and sunshine are always there. For they are a necessary hope that shines at the end of the tunnel.
. . .
I waited for such a long time the moment when I could once more begin to paint and it’s because of this that today I find it difficult to drag myself away from before my easel.
Before, to express myself, to work was impossible and now I find this freedom to be truly great.
I have things to express such as , suffering, solitude and desolation, but also joy, exaltation and happiness.
All this is to be found in my paintings.
Macha BELSKY