LYDIA GRIGORIEVA
a poet, a writer, an artist
“You will see a wonderful London garden brought up by the hands of a Russian poet” (The New Age)
LYDIA GRIGORIEVA is a well- known Russian poet, the author of many poetry collections and two novels in verse. She is a bona fide member of the Union of Writers of Russia (since 1984), the World Academy of Art and Culture (California-Taiwan, since 1994), the International Poets Academy (Madras, India, 1995), the European Society of Culture (Venice, since 1995), the International P.E.N.-club (New York, since 1999, London, since 2007) ). She is the author and presenter of many radio programmes on the Russian radio and radio BBC, and, also, of many TV films about England widely screened all over Russia.
Lydia Grigorieva was born in a tiny hamlet in the Soviet Ukraine. As a child, she widely travelled all over the former USSR with her parents. Her father, a Polar pilot, sadly perished in flames, saving his aircraft over the icy waters of the Russian Far North. She graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology of the Kazan State University, but very soon became a free lance poet, greatly influenced by the rich poetical tradition of Russia.
Her poems have been translated into a number of languages, including English, Japanese, Hungarian, French, Chinese, Czech, Georgian, Armenian, etc. Since 1992, Lydia Grigorieva has lived in London.
Love for performing arts, especially painting, and love for solitary meditation brought her into the realm of photography. Very soon she achieved success with her photo pictures and accompanying essays published in various Russian media outlets in Russia and abroad. Her series of English rose pictures were published as a booklet of postcards called “The Tears of Joy” by a prominent Russian Publishing Company “Agni-Art” with sales all over Russia. The next series of postcards are due in spring and autumn of 2004.
In 2003, Lydia Grigorieva has completed a project called “The Monet Mania”, which has won her a great acclaim after her personal photo-show in Moscow. In this project, Lydia Grigorieva follows, in photography, the ideas of the great French painter Claude Monet who, out of 86 years of his life, spent 43 painting his own garden in Giverny. Lydia Grigorieva also pictures just her own garden and her own uncut flowers, doing that only in natural light and thus being true to the famous en pleine aire tradition of the Impressionists.
Lydia Grigorieva preaches the aesthetics of the ecstatic admiration of an object of beauty. She is convinced in the importance of the colour-therapy as a crucial part of the performing arts, to which the colour photography also belongs. Because she is a poet, her photo-canvases are twofold in their nature, begging not only for visual, but also for literary and philosophical understanding. It is to say, that behind the frame there is a “text”, a story, most frequently expressed in aphoristic and imaginative form. The influential Russian magazine “The New Age” (13, 2003) had the following to write about her art: “The flowers hereby come as cosmic images (“The Birth of a Star”) and affectionate publicists (“The Tears for General Gamov”). The present us with most usual human passions and their consequences (“”Tears of Joy”, “The Angel of Passion”, “Morning Hangover”). In short, this is a veritable colour-sophy transforming itself into a colour-politics.”
Lydia Grigorieva’s next photo-project, “Dangerous Beauty”, presents photo-dramas and photo-tragedies of the opium poppy growing in the London garden of this Russian poet, essayist, TV-maker and photo-artist. The poppy is presented in all its beauty so dangerous and pulling for some fans of sharper emotions. It is as if we see an entire life span of the flower from its conception (“The Eggs of Fate”) to is death and a hope for resurrections of the perished soul.
The names of the pictures, like “The Four Angels”, “The Banished Prophet”, “The Opium of Power - the Cap of Russian Tsars” have here even greater significance. Works by Lydia Grigorieva are eagerly bought by the collectors and fans of her colour-therapy.
Her personal photo-exhibitions:
“The Monet Mania” (Moscow, March 2003); “The Colour Mania” (Kazan, November 2004); “Mirages of Venice. Faces and Images of Venetian Carnival” (Kazan, December 2004; Moscow, February 2005 and Venice (San Servolo), March 2005);
“Photo-Poetry” (Pushkin House, London, UK, April 2007);
“Water Signs” (Moscow, «ХХI Century Gallery», September 2007).
Collective exhibitions: Birmingham Spring Fair, NEC, 5-9 February 2006; 11th annual Chelsea Art Fair, Chelsea Old Town Hall, London, 20-23 April 2006.
Permanent Exhibition – the website of the London “Hay Hill” Gallery: www.sirin.co.uk
From reviews in Russian media (“The New Age”, “A New Model”, “Literaturnaya Gazeta”, “The Time M”, “The Moscow Comsomolets”, “Culture” TV Channel):
“You will see a wonderful London garden brought up by the hands of a Russian poet”...
“The Russian poet Lydia Grigorieva brought from London to Moscow an exhibition of enormous beauty”... Like the great Monet, she hunts moments, when the flowers in her garden change their shades and colours”...
“This colour-therapy and aesthetics of admiration hidden in “The Moner Mania” photo-project, is an attempt to master a life-style within the beauty itself, within the garden fence, which divides us from the world littered by unseemly events and occurrences.
“In short, this is a veritable colour-sophy transforming itself into a colour-politics”.
From 2006 to 2025, Lidia Grigorieva held numerous solo exhibitions, published photo albums, and created cinematic projects.
In 2013, she presented "Faces and Masks of the Venetian Carnival" in London.
In 2015, her exhibition "Spring in Paradise: In the Footsteps of Monet's Mania" was also shown in London.
Her photo album "Venetian Mirages", featuring photographs, essays, and poems by Lidia Grigorieva, was published by the Hermitage’s Slavia publishing house in Saint Petersburg in 2010.
In 2015, she released the film poem "Jerusalem of My Garden", based on her own essay. The film was edited and voiced the same year, using photographs of Himalayan poppies from the author's own garden. The footage was collected over ten years of her work as a gardener and photographer in London. This film poem was screened at her creative evenings in London, Kazan, Moscow, Tbilisi (Georgia), and presented at international congresses and festivals. At the SIFFA Film Festival in Sochi (2017), she also gave a masterclass on the creation of a new art genre: the film poem.
Her next film poem, "Kandinsky Ocean", was completed in 2018. It is based on photographs capturing light reflections on the waters of two oceans and five seas, taken over a decade of travel. The film was awarded a Diploma at SIFFA in Sochi “for the visualization of poetry in film.”
In July 2025, Lidia Grigorieva will present selected works from her Venetian series at an international exhibition at Chelsea Town Hall (July 25–27). These pieces are notable not only for their originality, but also for their rich exhibition history, press coverage, and public response. Owning one of these works means becoming part of their creative journey and joining the discerning opinions of the collectors who have acquired them in Venice, Brussels, Paris, Moscow, and London.
Lidia Grigorieva’s photographic works have long graced the covers of literary almanacs and anthologies. For this reason, the artist has decided to showcase her most striking images on her website for sale and licensing, particularly for producers of souvenir or book-related products.
As the website is further developed, it will feature many new and exciting works by the poet, essayist, and photo artist Lidia Grigorieva. In this way, collectors and admirers will have the chance to acquire photo-paintings of “a beautiful London garden, cultivated by the hands of a Russian poetess.”
For the "Kandinsky Ocean" project, she travelled across seas and oceans to capture mesmerizing light reflections on water—images that echo the work of great abstractionists like Kandinsky, Pollock, and Miró. These photographs make stunning additions to modern interiors and will also soon be available to order from her website: LidaGrig.com.
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