Fine Artist · London
Original oil paintings of London — its streets, landmarks and light. Each work painted by hand in the studio and sold directly to collectors worldwide.
View paintingsEach painting is unique — when sold, it is gone. All works ship free across the UK.
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I engage visual art as a language — a way of representing my understanding of consciousness, perception and the texture of contemporary life. My cityscapes are not simply records of London's buildings and streets; they are structured explorations of how we see, attend to, and filter the world around us.
Each composition is deliberately separated into fragments: some areas rendered in highly detailed, realistic style — others allowed to dissolve into void, blur, or near-absence. These four qualities represent the four stages of consciousness: alert, meditating, lucid dreaming and sleep. The void is not empty — it stands for cosmos, for what lies beyond our focus, and must never dominate but remain a presence, a hint.
I work in the tradition of the Old Masters — building layers of oil glazes, allowing the natural blurriness that occurs while pigment is still wet to become part of the surface. There are times when you paint in your mind long before brush meets canvas. I rarely begin with a blank surface — I begin with a nurtured composition.
It is important that my work is understood and relates to all viewers inclusively. I do this through the familiar places and buildings of London — landmarks that carry collective memory and personal meaning simultaneously. I hope to transfer within my paintings a creative, positive energy to all who encounter them.
Each composition moves deliberately between states — from the highly detailed and precisely observed, through to areas that blur, dissolve and ultimately disappear into void. These are not unfinished passages. They represent the invisible: the spiritual realm, the unconscious, the parts of reality we sense but cannot fix in focus.
Published under the artist's earlier professional name, Nadiya Pavliv-Tokarska, used until 2010, prior to the opening of Tokarska Gallery.
"...I feel as if Nadiya's work has taken me on an alternative whistle stop tour of the capital; a tour of a begotten London miraculously silenced, captured in snap shot frames of time standing still."
"...This somewhat magic ability to pacify the pandemonium has been executed in rather uncanny detail, reminiscent of the veritable old master technique — a certain style that reasserts the once stirring power of these builds. Nadiya is a modern day flâneur, living and breathing her city — more importantly flexing her love for this city."
— Zoe-Lee Skelton, Meer
"Out east in Walthamstow, on what she describes as 'the doorstep of central London', Ukrainian artist Nadiya Pavliv-Tokarska's gallery, also open since 2011, hosts group shows with emerging artists as well as community events, such as life drawing classes."
— Anna McNay, "Girl Power in Art", STATE Magazine
I work from your reference images or ideas to create a painting made entirely for you. Price is agreed before work begins, with an initial payment of 30% of the total price required to start. Timescales depend on size — please allow at least two weeks for smaller paintings and up to 4–6 weeks for larger works.
Every commission begins with a conversation. Tell me what you have in mind — a London landmark, a personal place, a sacred subject, or a reproduction of a sold work. I am happy to discuss ideas at any stage with no obligation.
Each commission is unique — painted to the collector's brief, from their own reference or ideas. These are a selection of completed works.
A private commission — the collector wanted St Paul's as seen from the street at dusk, with vintage London atmosphere. Painted in a deep monochromatic blue palette evoking a rainy London evening in the 1970s.
