Varfolomeyeva Efimia I. was born of peasant stock. She worked as plasterer and house painter, before retiring on an old-age pension in the Urals town of Azbest, where she now lives. She first began to paint, without any training, in 1973, preferring themes with a civic ring, such as the Soviet people’s heroic work in the hinterland during the past war. Her basic means of expression consists of the simple depiction of the subject, with lack of spatial depth and clearly demarcated patches of colour.
These pictures are deeply sincere, artless, and are marked by what one could term stereotypes or eternal axiomatic truths, as illustrated by such pictures as «The Yard of the House I Lived in When a Child,» «Winter in the Village,» or «Harvesting in the 1930s.» In the last-named, she has elevated the harvesting scene into a symbol of the work that has fed man over the centuries. Besides being represented at republic-level group shows, she has had two exhibitions devoted exclusively to her work.
