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At all of seven years old, Aelita Andre has already held the title of “child prodigy” for five years. She became an international sensation at the tender age of two—before she even started pre-school—for her abstract works of art. The New York Times, 60 Minutes, and Time are just a few of the global media outlets that picked up her story, painting her as a “pee-wee Picasso” and leaving the tot with a life-long reputation for talent to uphold. The discovery of Andre’s gift all happened by chance, her mother, Nikka Kalashnikova, told me at a reception for one of her most recent exhibitions, “Aelita Andre—The Oracle of Space,” which was on display at Gallery 151 in New York City. Some nine months after being born, Aelita, dressed in diapers, crawled across her father’s canvas, picked up tubes of pigment and started to spread and mix the colors, not realizing this was the start of her artistic career. “She really just took over,” Kalashnikova said of Andre’s ambition to paint. “It’s all very natural for her. It’s so amazing that someone her age really knows what they want to do in life.”

by Brendan Lemon | 11/5/14 | Leave a comment |