Was born in Ukraine in the city of Mariupol. Graduated from the Kiev Technological Institute of Light Industry, specializing in sewing production specialist. Since childhood Lyudmila was interested in art and painting, she redrawn beautiful pictures and postcards, but only much later realized she got a talent. Once, at a small art exhibition, she saw paintings made from dry straw. These works made a huge impression by their beauty and unusual material that Lyudmila, in her words, “fell in love with straw and decided to master this art”. She realized that straws (oatmeal, rye, wheat) are unusually beautiful, filled with solar energy, carries a positive emotional charge, improves mood, gives pleasure while working and looks beautiful in paintings.
After arriving in New York in 1997, Ms. Shamis continued to work with straws and improved her skills. She brought with her to America a bag of straws she had collected on the field with her own hands. Her works are warm and sunny, they cheer up and give joy. It seems that the objects in the paintings become voluminous and alive; candles are burning, roses are fragrant, ducks are flying and the wind blows the sails… This is a very precise and painstaking work that requires great attention, diligence and accuracy, patience and imagination. The material is extremely fragile and requires long processing by many stages.
Lyudmila Shamis became a member of the Jewish Folk Crafts Guild in 2005. She participated in all Guild’s collective openings and exhibitions and held many personal exhibitions. There are more than 300 works in her luggage that are in private collections in America and Canada, Ukraine and Russia, Israel, Australia and Germany.
