LITTLE Aelita Andre looks like any other four-year-old having fun with her paints.

But unlike the kids at your local pre-school, Aelita’s brightly spattered daubs sell for thousands of dollars internationally and have been compared to modern art greats like Jackson Pollock and Pablo Picasso.



This weekend the prodigy from Melbourne has her first solo exhibition at a New York art gallery where her backers hope she can match the $24,000 set for one of her paintings in Hong Kong last year.



“She chooses the colours herself,” says proud dad Michael Andre. “She’s so determined, and forceful, and decisive, and she’ll actually get angry if you attempt to suggest a colour.”



For mum Nikka Kalashnikova it’s a case of: “If a child is very talented, you have to give them the opportunity.”



Aelita started playing with paints when she was just 11 months old, prompting her artist parents to submit her work anonymously to a local gallery for professional assessment.



She had her first showing at the Brunswick Street Gallery in Melbourne and two years on has some 250 paintings under her belt.



While most of Aelita’s paintings retail for between about $4800 and $10,000 it was a picture of the Russian Mir space station that set her record price in Hong Kong.



Her parents insist they are not forcing her to paint and that the work should be judged on its artistic merits and not her age.



They say that child artists actually have a tougher time than adults because galleries refuse to take them seriously and hope Aelita’s success paves the way for other talented children.



”Aelita had a very, very difficult run,” Mr Andre said. “When her work was initially judged, it was purely on the painting itself. (Mum) Nikka deliberately withheld her age just to see what the reaction was.”



And while they are happy to indulge her muse, they say it’s exhausting, messy, and time-consuming living with a four-year-old artist whose studio takes up the entire first floor of their house.



Aelita Andre is showing at the Agora Gallery in New York until June 25 2011.