Vladimir Putin is known for showing off his muscled chest. How fitting then that he should have his portrait painted by an artist using her breasts instead of brushes? Not that the Russian President was at all involved in the process. The St Petersburg artist, Irina Romanovskaya, took it upon herself to paint Putin and explained in her blog this week that the portrait was made with “soul and body”. She also discussed some of the difficulties of her technique, saying that it is “laborious and not fast”.
“Any imprecision can lead to having to redo the entire painting from scratch,” she wrote, adding that she is “constantly perfecting my technique”. Romanovskaya, who has also painted Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev and the politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, said that strangers are not allowed to observe what she described as “an intimate process”. However the resulting works are popular with collectors. “Paintings painted with breasts sell well and for a lot,” she wrote. (Imagine that.) “They can be found in private collections in Russia and abroad.”
Although Romanovskaya’s blog includes many photos of her and her prodigious, um, tools, her portrait of Putin is totally safe for work, portraying the president fully dress in a suit and tie.