At all of seven years old, Aelita Andre has already held the title of âchild prodigyâ for five years. She became an international sensation at the tender age of twoâbefore she even started pre-schoolâfor her abstract works of art. The New York Times, 60 Minutes, and Time are just a few of the global media outlets that picked up her story, painting her as a âpee-wee Picassoâ and leaving the tot with a life-long reputation for talent to uphold.
The discovery of Andreâs gift all happened by chance, her mother, Nikka Kalashnikova, told me at a reception for one of her most recent exhibitions, Aelita AndreâThe Oracle of Space, which was on display at Gallery 151 in New York City. Some nine months after being born, Aelita, dressed in diapers, crawled across her fatherâs canvas, picked up tubes of pigment and started to spread and mix the colors, not realizing this was the start of her artistic career. âShe really just took over,â Kalashnikova said of Andreâs ambition to paint. âItâs all very natural for her. Itâs so amazing that someone her age really knows what they want to do in life.â
Kalashnikova and her husband, Michael Andre, are both artists, so creative blood runs in the family. âWe do a little bit of painting and photography, and we are both film makers,â she said. When the couple noticed their daughterâs eye for color and composition, they soon sent samples to New Yorkâs Agora Gallery, deliberately withholding Aelitaâs age to ensure a proper reaction. The results led to their daughterâs first show.
âI saw great colors, great movement, great composition, and very playful, and I thought, âThis is fantastic,ââ Angela Di Bellow, director of Agora Gallery told NBC of her reaction seeing the work for the first time. âWho is this person? Only to find out, sheâs a child.â
Di Bello described the color-splashed works as âabstract expressionismâ with âsurrealistâ methods. Aelita incorporates both pigment and everyday objects such as toys, instruments, and textiles, lending depth and texture to the flat surfaces, much like lauded artists before her.
But, itâs hard to not be skeptical. Can a seven year oldâlet alone a two year oldâreally make the conscious calculations necessary to create âtrueâ works of art? Or do her parentsâwho are also artistsâplay a large role in guiding the brush that pulled in well over $200,000 in 2012?
This has been the biggest question Aelita and her family have faced.
âI really enjoy painting,â Aelita told The Daily Beast. âI just like that I get to express my freedom.â
This freedom was thoroughly expressed at her gallery reception. Aelita spent the majority of her time oscillating between camera interviews, where she was perfectly poised, and running around (and in between guests) playing hide-and-seek from flashbulb photographers, occasionally screaming at the top of her lungs. At no moment was she unprofessional during interviews, but as soon as the questions stopped, she went back to being a playful 7-year-old.
In 2009, during her first exhibition, Reuters spoke with art critics who had a high amount of skepticism that Aelitaâs work was 100-percent original. âThereâs probably some degree of collaboration between parent and child,â art critic and professor of art and design Robert Nelson, said. âThe colorful backdrop, the calligraphic marks that was probably put there by a parent, thatâs not the work of a child, certainly not a child of that age.â Aelita was two.
Her parents rebutted the accusations through homemade (though highly produced) videos which promote her exhibitions. In the video that accompanied a 2012 show at Chelseaâs Agora Gallery, Aelita stands in her studio splattering paint wildly onto a canvas with a pensive lookâmuch like one would imagine Jackson Pollock, but without the martini.
Her recent exhibitionâand fourth New York solo showâat Gallery 151 brought about a âgroundbreaking new series of works fusing painting with sound,â according to Gallery 151âs website. Aelita, who has mounted violins onto her canvases, physically plays her art, merging painting and performance while encouraging spectators to touch and interact with the works.
âOnce the violin is totally onto the canvas with the paint and glitter and things, they are a part of each other,â Aelita told The Daily Beast. âYou canât separate them. The same way my art is a part of me; the violin is a part of the canvas and the painting is able to sing.â The sounds she performs from the violins on canvas replicate her idea of sounds found in the cosmos. The inspiration was garnered from a recent fascination with space documentaries and Neil Degrasse Tyson, whom she was hoping would stop by the reception.
Each work incorporates an interest in space and the cosmosâstars, planets, galaxies, and even human existence. Dinosaurs are strategically placed in migration across a three-panel oil piece, gradually making their way away from a massive explosion of color. Her very first sculpture, a metallic chrome unicorn aptly titled âSpace Oracle,â sits on a pedestal directly in front. It serves as the heart of the collective works, as an interface between the cosmos and humanity.
Whether or not Aelita realizes the scrutiny sheâs been under, she has undoubtedly undergone a big transformationâwhich is expected of someone learning to walk, talk, and develop original interests and ideas. The two-year-old, âMy-Child-Could-Do-That-Tooâ sensation who once hit tubes of paint against a canvas until the pigment ran out has evolved into a methodized (and knowledgeable) artist in her own right.