Ester Petukhova

Ester Petukhova painted this image as a fresh take on Caravaggio's depiction of David having beheaded Goliath. Petukhova's willingness to portray herself as executioner is the sort of edgy and surprising work she sometimes creates. Her teacher pronounced it "beautifully executed."

By BETSY HAMMOND

The Oregonian/OregonLive

Ester Petukhova, a junior at David Douglas High, has painted her way to being named one of the nation's two best visual artists for her age. She won that honor in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, the nation's highest profile arts competition.

A Russian immigrant, she is bilingual yet not fully in sync with the culture of either country, she says. So Petukhova paints to express herself using a visual language in which she is perfectly at home.

She’s become exceptionally good at it, in part by working extremely hard, says her high school art teacher, Maria Galati. Indeed, Petukhova says she devotes as least 40 hours a week to her craft year-round.

“Ester is very driven to be excellent, to achieve high levels of craftsmanship,” Galati said. “She has really worked hard to teach herself high-level techniques. She is very motivated and doggedly driven.”

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Ester Petukhova

This contour line drawing, "Kapstya," is one of four by Ester Petukhova that won national medals in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards this year. Kapstya is a Russian slang term for money.

Many of her works are self-portraits. In the past year, she has moved into more general portraiture, Galati says. Her line drawings are elegant, the teacher says; her paintings are beautifully executed. Surrealism is a frequent element.

"She likes realism,” Galati says. “But her realism has feeling and emotion and beauty. She’s not just a technician. She puts a lot of emotion into her work and tells her story.”

Petukhova remembers Russia only through pictures and stories. She wasn’t yet 1 when her family left to join her grandmother and many aunts and uncles in the Portland area. They had been persecuted as Christians and fled to the United States as religious refugees.

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Ester Petukhova preps a canvas with primer in a hallway of David Douglas High School in east Portland.

She grew up in a tight-knit Russian and Ukrainian community on Portland's eastside. As a child, she says, she was never invited to an American-style birthday party. She's never been on a sleepover. "For the most part, a lot of the kids I grew up with were other Russian or Ukrainain immigrant children. We didn't fit in, didn't speak the language as well. So we created good memories together and helped each other grow up."

She has found her place at David Douglas High, where she is friendly with a diverse set of classmates. She tells some of their stories as well as her own through her art.

“I try to not only talk about my own experiences but experiences of my friends. I do pay a lot of attention to things that go on in our society. I think about ways I can create art that talks about it.”

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Ester Petukhova

This portrait, "Aditi," won a national gold medal in painting and sealed Ester Petukhova's status as the nation's top painter among high school juniors and seniors.

Her most highly decorated work at this year’s national contest, the one that sealed her status as 2018’s top painter among high school juniors and seniors, is a portrait. Titled Aditi after its subject, it portrays a young Indian woman she met last summer. Petukhova drew on the elements of a classic Renaissance portrait -- a subject of great wealth or power, lavish clothes and jewels, a rich background -- and turned them inside out. She chose a young woman of color for the formal, royal treatment, and made whiteness, not ornate furnishings, the background.

“I wanted to capture the beauty and elegance that Aditi has. Her body is relaxed, with her hands resting and one foot over the other. But she’s in a pose of power, with her jaw tilted up. With the eye contact, she’s staring at you in a way that feels almost confrontational.”

Petukhova had won recognition before Scholastic contest judges named her the “best-in-grade” visual artist, along with Lilah Krugman, a junior who attends a private school in Atlanta.

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Ester Petukhova

This painting, "Hands of Hope," was inspired by the support artist Ester Petukhova got from her friends at a rough juncture. "They were there to help me during a time of need."

Although Petukhova learned what she knows from library books and never took a formal art class until she reached high school, she is the only person that David Douglas High has allowed to take Advanced Placement drawing as a sophomore. Even at that age, she managed to earn a coveted top rating for her end-of-the-year portfolio from the judges at the College Board. Officials there went on to use a selection of her work as the example they provide to students and teachers nationwide to illustrate the very highest level of achievement for an interrelated set of drawings.

Last summer, Petukhova was one of 54 students worldwide chosen to take part in an intensive four-week summer art institute run by New York University. She gobbled up the lessons on art history, art theory and art techniques. Her day-long visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art left an indelible impression.

“The second I stepped on the grounds, I started crying because it was so beautiful. It amped up my fire even more,” she said. “There is so much difference between reading about these works in textbooks versus getting to see them in real life. To get to see the strokes and textures up close -- you feel that movement.”

She was selected to attend another summer art program at the Rhode Island School of Design this year. But she was not awarded a full scholarship, so she is uncertain whether she will be able to take part, she said.

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Ester Petukhova

This painting, "Ties," is among the many self portraits the hard-working teen artist has created. It won a silver medal in this year's national art competition.

In addition to her gold medal for her Aditi portrait, Petukhova won silver medals for three other paintings: two self-portraits and a painting that shows her hands surrounded by the hands of friends who helped her through a tough time. She was one of just 14 students nationwide -- including digital artist Sarina Carlaw of Southridge High in Beaverton -- who won at least four honors in the national art and writing contest this year.

In addition to creating art of her own, Petukhova tries hard to show other students the way, including in a series of YouTube videos on her channel, "From one young artist to the next." She shares her many, many works, some still in progress, on her Instagram account.

Ultimately her secret to success, she says, is “going 120 percent and working and working and working. You can’t just do it partially.”

-- Betsy Hammond

betsyhammond@oregonian.com

@chalkup