Art is more than what meets the eye. It’s what lies beyond the visible, what we feel and experience. In an interview with the talented artist Lina Yakobi, we explore her unique method of creating multi-layered paintings and how she uses augmented reality and artificial intelligence to push the boundaries of art and open new horizons for viewers.
Lina, please tell us how you started your journey in art?
In 2021, I bought a 130×90 canvas and wanted to create my glowing guardian angel on it. I wanted to hide it so that in the light it wouldn’t be visible, but in the dark it would glow. But I realised that just pouring acrylic on the canvas is not a professional painting, but an amateur’s level. And I wanted a real painting.
And I decided to learn how to create paintings. So I signed up for a course on texture paintings. When I started to study techniques, I realised that you start one thing, you study it, but then something else opens up that is not in the course, and I already have this knowledge from somewhere. And since then I don’t stop, I like to experiment and improve myself.
After creating a few paintings, I realised that people liked them. Those who looked at them said how unusual and beautiful they were! I haven’t received any negative feedback at all so far (I don’t want to be pelted with slippers, but it was very important to me that everyone supported me at the beginning of my creative journey). And when I realised that everyone really liked my paintings, it turned out that everyone wanted to buy them, but at the price of materials and painter’s work. And then I had a question: ‘Why do some artists’ paintings cost thousands and millions, but mine are just a painted canvas? What do I need to do to make my work more valuable?’ So I signed up for another course for professional artists, and then another, and another, and another. In parallel with these courses, I started to study a lot. And it turned out that the world of art is a very special world.
How long have you been making art and what have you tried before?
I seem to have always been a creative person. I composed poems and fairy tales, which were printed in newspapers and magazines. Thanks to this, I even got into a literary institute without exams, but I didn’t go to study there. At that time I lived in Siberia, and the institute was in Moscow. I just didn’t know how to combine my studies and work. Later I learnt the profession of an interior designer and showed customers sketches drawn by hand with paints (it was in 1998). And then I was often told: ‘You are a real artist! Why don’t you paint pictures?’ I always guffawed and replied: ‘What kind of artist am I? I just know how to draw.’ I always had the feeling that artists are special people, ‘swans’, a kind of elite. So I worked as an interior and furniture designer, I even tried to create a collection of clothes and organised a fashion show, but it didn’t catch my fancy. In general, creativity has always been present in my life, but I only admitted to myself that I was an artist in 2023
What exactly inspired you to create multi-layered pieces?
It turned out to be my style. When I studied with brilliant teachers, they would ask questions like: ‘What is your art about, and what are you saying to the world?’ You start looking for answers. And the answer to that question starts when I was four years old. My mum was given perfume and the box was a double box. And there was a window with a picture of a princess in it. And I remember I wanted to see what was behind the princess, what was hidden behind that frame. And I tore that box open. And I cried because there was nothing there. And I’d already invented a whole world, and it wasn’t there.
So that box influenced my whole life, I always tried to look and see what I thought was hidden, but it was there.
And I also realised that all my paintings bear this trace, they are as if in a kind of a frame and with uneven edges….
And then, it seems to me, the ability to invent started that day with that box, when I imagined a whole magical world in the window with the princess.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=ZkTAT7V2bHHeLOWo&v=MG4k2TH4Hbg&feature=youtu.be
How does technology, such as augmented reality, affect your creativity?
Augmented reality (AR) fascinated me as soon as I learnt about its possibilities. It’s a whole world that you can invent and create! You’re a real creator there. And that, of course, inspires me to dive into learning more about this technology.
So far I’m only using AR to show another layer, another fantasy that is related to my painting or a character from an installation. It is part of my method of making paintings. It is, you could say, my style.
Can you tell us more about your patented ‘Yakobi Method’? How did you come up with this innovation?
It was a very long journey. It is natural for me to close my eyes and see images, but technically it was a difficult task: how to separate what is visible in the light and what is visible in the imagination on the canvas. I couldn’t find a way to do it for a long time, because in the paintings everything is mixed up, and we decide where is fantasy and where is reality. And I wanted to separate them for real. And in the end I did it. That’s how the ‘Yakobi Method’ came into being, which I’m developing now. The essence of the method is that you always see one image in the light, and there is one or more other images hidden in it. I create them with different types of colours that are activated. It seems simple now, but I’ve been going at it for a long time, experimenting and doing research.
As a result, I found a technical solution to create different, changing images on the same medium. This novelty allowed me to obtain an intellectual property patent. In fact, it is my invention, my way to show, for example, an angel separately, and not as usual, next to a person.
In my case, the picture looks like this: ‘a man and his usual world’, and when the light is switched off, angels are already visible. Or, for example, in the light it is a usual person, but in the dark he turns into a dragon.
There was a time when I was looking for an artist to whom I could tell and show my method, so that he could help me realise it. But I couldn’t find anyone. Many people would twist their fingers and say that it was impossible, even though I held the colours in my hands and showed them how to do it. And then, at a group exhibition in Málaga in 2023, I met an artist who was one of the first people I told about my method. Then he refused to create anything with me. He said: ‘I’m sorry, but no. This is yours.’ And how happy he was with me that I had done it on my own! Thirteen years have passed since that conversation…..
In the world, it often happens that an innovation lives for decades, and in one moment it becomes a discovery. You just work on it, improve it, show it, tell it, then put it aside, then go back again, and so on. Basically, it’s part of your life, you just live with it. As long as you yourself, or the world, or ‘the stars just so happen to align’, it doesn’t become an ‘innovation’.
Artificial Intelligence, for example, didn’t come along in 2022 either. And everyone perceives Chat GPT as a new phenomenon. Although its history began much earlier, it was described centuries ago, and in the 50s it was formalised as a scientific discipline. So my innovation follows the same path as all the others. It’s a long journey, not an instant discovery.
I was very pleased when, at my exhibition, one person said: ‘I look at this and I realise what a lot of background is hidden in here.’
Yes. There is a lot of knowledge that comes together to form complete images….
What themes and ideas do you seek to explore in your paintings?
Basically, I’m exploring reality, trying to figure out what it is. I study nature, history, and I’m very interested in alternative history. I even created an ‘AI assistant’, an expert on alternative history, and he will be my guide in the ‘Portals’ series of paintings. A person comes in, looks at a ‘Portal’ painting and is ‘sent’ to an alternate history of Earth or a parallel reality.
I love being an artist so much! You can create and not think about ‘you can’t do that’. Thank you to everyone who supports the idea of ‘I am an artist, I see it this way’! For me, it’s an opportunity to come up with whatever I want and show it to people.
And I love it!
What do you think is more important to the viewer: what is seen in the light or what is hidden?
What is more important: to see the world as it is and to experience it with only five senses, denying the existence of the sixth sense, dreams, fantasies, dreams, God – everything that cannot be experienced with these five senses? One is sure that there is only that world which can be perceived by the senses. There are only five! And everything that is felt by these five senses is important, and everything else is nonsense and not worthy of attention.
Everyone, as they say, lives his life to the best of his ability. For someone, a castle in the clouds is something impossible, because it can’t be. After all, there is a line of the electromagnetic spectrum, and only a part of it perceived by the human eye is the visible spectrum. Human vision is limited to wavelengths of about 380 to 750 nanometres. Anything beyond these limits (infrared, ultraviolet, X-rays and other radiation) remains invisible to the eye, but modern technology has helped us realise that it exists.
These technologies have expanded our perception of the world, and how many other technologies we haven’t thought of!
Deep down we realise how multifaceted the world is, but if there is no scientific proof, it is not considered very normal and good to believe in it. Somehow one needs scientific reasoning and proof. And that ‘you know because you know’ is something that is best not talked about.
And I started talking. And not just talk, but show. And what if what I showed would give some engineer, researcher, inventor an idea, and he would invent another device with the help of which it would be possible to see what is now considered by many people to be nonsense?
It’s up to each individual to choose what is more important to him: 5 senses or much more than that
Which projects or exhibitions have been most meaningful to you and why?
For me, every exhibition is an important event. Perhaps because I have been participating in them every month since August 2023, and each exhibition is a new experience. Each one seems to strengthen my confidence that I am doing my job and living my purpose and mission. Everyone has a purpose and mission (I believe in it), and happiness is when you realise that you are happy, that every day is filled with happiness and you live in this quiet inner joy. If you have this inner state of happiness, it means that you are in your place. And nothing is weighing you down. I didn’t always live in that state. But when I first realised and felt it. I don’t want to get out of it anymore. It feels good to live like that. And that’s what I put into my art. Sometimes I feel that the canvas and the colours are like an antenna that broadcasts what you put into it.
I’m a certified art therapist, so I know that the body can’t lie, and what you can’t put into words, the body will show. And if you take paint, it will ‘leave a trace’ of your condition, and whoever then looks at your art will count it. Not with the five senses. But he will 100% feel what emotions this image evokes in him: sadness, longing, inspiration or love. And what that picture sets you up for, that’s how you start living from that state.
It’s like a song. One song can capture you so much that if you sing it every day, you programme yourself for exactly what it’s about. (It’s like a mantra or affirmation: repeat it and be amazed at how things materialise). Therefore, it is very important to understand what music to listen to, what songs to sing, what pictures to surround yourself with in order to ‘programme’ yourself and your space for the desired state.
They say energy paintings. All paintings are energetic. They all contain the state of their creator, and you read, accept and programme yourself unconsciously. I hope that the time will come when paintings will be measured with instruments to determine what they ‘radiate’. So that everyone can choose paintings for themselves with the help of an instrument, if they don’t trust their inner barometer.
How did you come up with the idea of creating an eco-friendly bag with interchangeable liners?
Oh, my bag! This idea was born out of my laziness.
I’m too lazy to constantly move things from one bag to another. And even if I do, I can still forget my keys. I feel like this constant shifting of bags is unnecessary and inconvenient. (No, I’m not one of those people who don’t move much, but I saw some pointlessness in this action). And then, after all, one bag will not fit the whole wardrobe, fashion dictates its own rules. And this ‘pointless movement’ started to annoy me. And then I realised how much is behind this ‘useless movement’! How many resources are spent on the production of bags, how many raw materials, how much transport, storage, sales, and how many of these bags end up in landfills! And each of us has a mountain of bags at home. And I look at this accessory and realise that either it needs to be adapted to me somehow, or I just perceive it too difficult. I’ve been a member of Greenpeace for many years, and I’ve been using my ‘1 product = 1 tree seed’ sales system for over 20 years. I include a tree seedling in the price of each painting – it’s not just a painting, it’s also a life for the tree.
I find it really hard to come to terms with modern bags… It’s like coffee in capsules. When you see that one capsule is made of aluminium, and you realise how many resources go into mining and production for the sake of ‘your cup of coffee’, all desire to drink that coffee disappears.
Maybe it’s the overly conscious perception that everything is one, and what you do affects everyone…. Probably because of that. So I’m assuming that my swappable bags will appeal to people like me, those who don’t want to drink capsule coffee or are wondering: ‘Is the egg from a chicken that lived in a cage and suffered, or from that chicken that walked around the yard.’
In a world of abundance, we have choices and everyone chooses what is close to them and what they like, consciously or not.
That’s why I have one versatile bag that I change the overlays on. The overlays change the look of the bag and so it always fits my look
How do you see your art evolving in the future?
I’ll keep inventing. I know I can’t do otherwise. It’s hard for me to focus on any one thing even now.
I am constantly working on my Artist Statement (AS), and since I have introduced the designation for my art IMDart (Interactive Multidimensional Art). My paintings engage in a dialogue with the viewer. This dialogue is not fictional but real because the AI Assistant of the painting speaks not only about itself but also about many other things, staying within the topic.
I do not use AI just to create an image – I have integrated it as part of the artwork. This way, the world surprises me, and I show what I see and try to convey it as best as I can. I can say that I see my art in the future as a constant development and as something unique, unlike anything else. I like to see and show from a side that is not usually looked at from
What ways have you tried to publicise and promote your unique art and what works best?
In 2024, I was actively using Instagram to promote my creativity, participating in opencalls, publishing in magazines, organising exhibitions and working on increasing my number of followers. As such, I needed to build my CV. In 2025, I plan to focus on making my art more recognisable.
How do you find partners and audiences for your projects?
I get emails every 2-3 days, both from galleries and showrooms. Some emails come through subscriptions, others are probably related to magazine publications, maybe through Instagram, or maybe through gallery publications. So much has been done in this year and a half that I don’t even know where they get my email address. I’m registered on many platforms for artists.
The collaboration with an Italian religious products factory is my personal touch.
The audience comes because of the galleries working on exhibition attendance.
