Lyudmila Nikolaevna Makarenkova (1954–2011) was born and lived in Kostroma. After studying at the Children’s Art School named after Nikolai Shlein, she entered the Nekrasov Kostroma State Pedagogical Institute which she successfully graduated from in 1977. Her graduation work was the painting “Self-Portrait”, for which she received an “excellent” mark.

The next 13 years of her life, Lyudmila Makarenkova spent as a teacher in children’s art schools. For the first few years, she worked in Sharya, which is a city in the east of the Kostroma Oblast, and later in the villages of Minskoye and Kosmynino.

Upon returning to Kostroma, she went back to the institute where she once studied. This time as a sculpture teacher at the Art and Graphic faculty. She worked there from 1990 to 2011.

While teaching, Lyudmila Nikolaevna kept making art and looking for new means of expression. Art has become her gateway for sharing her emotional experiences and worldview with the viewer.

From her early works, which were done in a classic realistic manner, the artist moved on to expressing her view of reality metaphorically. In her paintings from the 1990s, one of which was “In the Studio”, she created a new world, where the artist’s feelings manifested in color take center stage.

In her paintings Makarenkova used color to express the inner essence and her vision of the things she depicted. In this case it is the workshop — a special place for every artist. She chose a bright color palette for this painting. It is dominated by bright and pure shades of yellow, orange, pink and blue with emotional accents of bright red and dark brown.

In the way she depicted human figures, Lyudmila Makarenkova appealed to the traditions of Russian icon painting. Her search for exposing the spiritual substance through the physical shape can be seen in the elongated proportions and static poses of the people in the painting. By using the “picture in a picture” method she gave the work a multidimensional character. The almost monochrome canvas in the corner contrasts with the warm tones of the workshop’s interior.