"Golden Stallion" (2024) Original Oil Painting by Fefa Koroleva

It's amazing how paintings decide which doors to open and which to keep closed.
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This isn’t the first time it has happened to me—I'm painting one horse, but a completely different one shows up.
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I wanted to depict my mare Sonata, but this stallion appeared instead. For a while, I tried to convince him to leave and not push Sonata out, but he was steadfast.
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Then we had negotiations about his appearance. I didn’t want to paint four socks and a marking on his head, and I tried to give him a different profile. In fact, his entire conformation wasn’t what I had originally planned. But now it is what it is. He absolutely refused to let me change anything about him, and even if I was unhappy with some of his features and wanted to tweak them, it was impossible.
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In the end, he also asked for a herd in the distance. His herd!
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And a brand... he wanted a brand. The brand shows the year 2023, meaning the stallion is just one year old at the time the painting was made, yet he appeared fully grown.
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When I was photographing the painting, it fell with a loud crash. Artists have a superstition that if a painting falls, it’s a sign it will be sold. I already intended to “release him into the world,” but after the fall, I understood that this horse is very eager to be set free.
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Oil on canvas
Size: 30x40cm

Materials used:

oil

Details:

• Oil painting on Canvas
• One of a kind artwork
• Size: 40 x 30 x 3cm (unframed) / 40 x 30cm (actual image size)
• Ready to hang
• Signed on the front
• Style: Unspecified
• Subject: Animals and birds