Illustration for The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Knights 1996

This illustration for The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Knights appears to be made with watercolor and ink, and the lines are so precise, so sure. It’s clear that artmaking is a process, a story told one careful mark at a time. The colors are muted, like looking through a dream, but the details are sharp. The patterns on the princess’s dress, the wood grain of the walls, and that strange scene glimpsed through the doorway are all rendered with amazing care. I keep coming back to that doorway. What’s going on out there? A ghostly figure, a dog, a sense of unease. It’s like a visual metaphor for the story itself, a glimpse into a world of fairy tales and danger. There’s something of Ivan Bilibin in the intricate borders, but Nazaruk’s style feels more personal, more vulnerable. Art is like a conversation, a passing of ideas from one artist to another, each adding their own voice to the chorus. This piece is all about embracing the ambiguous, leaving space for each of us to find our own story within the image.