By Ginevra Barbetti. Image cover by Polina Stepanova. Force Gravitation series, I’M FIRENZE Digest collage.
What happens when you stop controlling paint, and let it lead the way? For Polina Stepanova, that’s where alchemical painting begins: a fusion of chemistry, instinct, and transformation. Trained at the Antwerp Academy of Fine Arts, she turns precision into experimentation, creating living surfaces where water, resin, and pigment react beyond control. In this conversation, the dialogue unfolds around art as ritual, mistakes as meaning, and the radical act of letting go – a reminder that true creation begins where certainty ends.
From Discipline to Creative Freedom: How Training Shapes Alchemical Painting
How has your academic background shaped your approach to alchemical painting?
I studied fashion design at the Antwerp Academy of Fine Arts, alongside academic drawing and illustration, which trained my sensitivity to form and technique. My parents, both graduates of the Russian Academy of Arts and Fashion, exposed me to painting from childhood; by twelve, I was already studying at an art school in St. Petersburg, learning discipline through anatomy and still life.
At Antwerp, I discovered that true academism isn’t imitation but research, questioning, experimenting, and pushing limits. That mindset gave me both precision and curiosity. Alongside fashion, I painted constantly, moving through media from graphite to watercolor. Graphite gave me control; watercolor taught me surrender. During the pandemic, I confronted the medium I feared most: wet-on-wet painting. Its instability forced me to relinquish control and engage with transformation rather than resistance. That experience marked the beginning of my alchemical practice, where painting became a dialogue with matter itself.
What led you to transform art from communication into a ritual or energetic dialogue?
Art has always been more than communication to me, it’s necessity, ritual, and energy. I’m fascinated by the figure of the shaman as a transmitter of knowledge, someone who mediates between realms. The artist, I believe, plays a similar role: translating the unseen into the visible. This belief informs my teaching and performance practice. For over thirteen years, I’ve viewed teaching not as instruction but as co-creation. A workshop is a ritual space, not about transferring knowledge, but awakening creativity that already exists in others. Art becomes an energetic dialogue between individuals and the collective.
What role does teaching play in your artistic vision?
Teaching is a mirror of my painting process: both explore transformation. In class, as in the studio, materials – ideas, emotions, students – are alive and unpredictable. My role is to guide without control. I teach both theory and practice, from Trend Forecasting to Aesthetics and Creative Illustration, focusing on identity, culture, and perception. I give my students a compass, not a map, tools to navigate uncertainty and develop their own methodology. Teaching constantly reminds me that creativity is about being present, observing transformation, and allowing change, the essence of alchemical art.
Alchemical Painting Explained: Materials, Chance, and Transformation
How would you describe the essence of alchemical painting?
Alchemical painting explores the transformation of materials over time. Using chemical reactions, I pour and spill instead of brush, engaging gravity, air, and fluid dynamics. The process recalls Abstract Expressionism and Arte Povera, where natural forces replace gesture.
Working with resin-based inks that react with water and solvents, I observe rather than control the process. The essence lies in the dialogue between matter, time, and the artist, creation as transformation rather than manipulation.
How do you balance intuition and intention without losing control to chance?
Through repetition and experience. After thousands of works, I understand how pigments and solvents behave, enough to predict tendencies without dictating form. It’s like planting a tree: you know the species, not its exact shape. You prepare conditions, but nature decides. In alchemical painting, I create the conditions for transformation while embracing unpredictability. Intuition and intention merge through knowledge and presence.
Color, Elements, and Astrology: How Energy Shapes Palettes
How do you choose color palettes linked to elements or astrological events?
I sometimes align workshops with astrological events, not as rules but as symbolic frameworks. Each sign embodies specific energies, beginnings, transitions, or dreams, that guide palette and rhythm. Earth signs inspire mineral tones and rooted textures; air or water signs suggest transparency and flow. Participants interpret these energies personally. The goal is not astrology itself, but awareness, color as vibration, reflection, and dialogue.
What place do mistakes and the unexpected have in your process?
Improvisation is essential. Nothing is rehearsed; accidents drive creation. A “mistake” isn’t failure but transformation, a shift in rhythm or balance. If a drop lands in the wrong place, it becomes part of the composition’s evolution. Predictability kills vitality. The unexpected keeps the work alive.
How Alchemical Painting Differs from Spiritual Art
What distinguishes alchemical painting from other symbolic or spiritual approaches?
It replaces representation with process. Symbols don’t precede the work; they emerge from it. Each reaction, stain, or movement becomes a metaphor for life’s transformation. In group settings, this becomes collective ritual, an act of shared energy rather than isolated creation. The painting isn’t a symbol of transformation; it is transformation.
Which artists or movements influence you most?
I draw more from movements than individuals. The shift from figurative to abstract art in the 20th century fascinates me, the courage to abandon representation. Johannes Itten taught me how color becomes language. Action painting and Abstract Expressionism resonate for their immediacy and surrender. Yves Klein remains a key influence for his fusion of spirituality, performance, and material experimentation, his attempt to paint the void itself.
You often say alchemical painting is more than art – an experience, a philosophy, a letting go. What do you mean?
It’s about liberation. Alchemical painting dissolves the pressure of productivity and perfection. It’s not about results, but presence. Letting go means releasing memory and expectation, freeing oneself from algorithmic thought and repetition. The goal is to witness creation unfolding, without imposing value or outcome.
How does your art respond to today’s digitalized world?
By slowing it down. In a society obsessed with speed and precision, alchemical painting offers stillness, a return to process, touch, and time.
Workshops become meditative spaces where participants surrender control and rediscover the value of imperfection and intuition. The goal isn’t a perfect image, but reconnection, to self, material, and moment.
What future directions do you envision for alchemical painting?
The practice is expanding beyond canvas. I’ve collaborated with Aquaflor, translating scent into visual form, and with Pineider, creating workshops that merge painting, craftsmanship, and sensory experience. Alchemical painting can evolve into multisensory dialogue – integrating sound, touch, and even taste. Ultimately, it’s a living methodology: adaptable, open, and transformative. My upcoming book project explores these ideas – a reflective journey into the philosophy of transformation.
