Portfolio
Maria Troika — Contemporary Fine Art & Gallery
Original oil paintings and works on paper by contemporary artist Mariia Novoseltseva. Browse the full gallery of fine art collections online.
"I was here. I lived this moment. And this is what remains of me."
Gallery — Fine Art Collections
Collection Valencia
A series of original oil paintings dedicated to the city of Valencia — presence, melancholy, and the Mediterranean light that shaped a chapter of the artist's life.
Collection Kolya
Intimate portraits of the artist's husband. A landmark series that broke a self-imposed monopoly on the female form and opened a new space of shared vulnerability.
Collection MySelf
An exploration of presence in the world. Each painting is a mirror of the soul — a struggle with internal demons and angels observed rather than repeated.
Collection Left Behind
The emergence of the artist's first cohesive language. Canvases of close observation, youthful timidity, and exhibitionism painted in the main square of Valencia.
Artist Biography — Mariia Novoseltseva
Mariia Novoseltseva (also known as Maria Troika) is a contemporary artist working across painting and works on paper. Born and raised in a tough district of Moscow, she trained at a specialized art school and later at an institute majoring in book and print graphics. In 2022 she relocated from Moscow to Valencia, Spain, where much of her early mature work was made. Her practice is grounded in Personalism, an artistic and philosophical movement she develops in her own work, which places the human being — as creator, carrier of time, and source of the work — at the center of art. She currently continues her practice while professionally studying psychology.
Background and Education
Mariia Novoseltseva was born and raised in a tough district of Moscow. Her parents were police officers, and her father left the family early on. From early childhood, she watched the world and her surroundings intently; when her voice found no response in reality, paper and paint became her primary interlocutors. Without a second thought, she enrolled in a specialized art school, and later entered an institute majoring in book and print graphics, where she quickly began to develop professionally.
Artistic Practice
Her work spans oil and acrylic painting on canvas and plywood, as well as works on paper. Across her collections — Valencia, Kolya, MySelf, and Left Behind — she fixes time, inner states, and traces of memory, turning personal experience into a material form. Through the canvas she records presence, vulnerability, and the lived moment, treating art as a space of truth rather than decoration.
Location and Exhibitions
After relocating to Spain in 2022, she produced much of her early mature work in Valencia, painting outdoors in the city's main square and selling her first paintings there. Her canvases from the Left Behind series have since found private collectors across the city. She continues to develop her collections and her Personalism manifesto between Spain and her ongoing studies.
Biography
I was born and raised in a tough district of Moscow, shoutout to south Butovo! My parents were police officers, and my father left the family early on. From early childhood, I watched the world and my surroundings intently. Sometimes children are not heard enough, but everyone has a voice; when my voice found no response in reality, paper and paint became my primary interlocutors. I turned to them as to a sensitive listener, capable of holding all my pain, fears, and emotions.
Without a second thought, I enrolled in a specialized art school, and later entered an institute majoring in book and print graphics. I quickly began to develop professionally, but over time I realized how restrictive the boundaries of commercial commissions were for me. Art has never been just a pretty picture to me, it became a space of absolute truth. Through the canvas, I fix time, inner states, and traces of memory, turning personal experience into a material form capable of living on when everything else falls silent.
In 2022, I made the decision to leave. It was a choice in favor of preserving myself and the inner culture that I love. I had to safeguard this memory within, so that years later, upon returning or by telling the world about it, I could remind others of the true face of what is dear to my heart.
Starting over from scratch without a language, money, or a clear plan was difficult, but I knew: art would not abandon me. If something greater than yourself lives inside you, it will pull you through. It always will. Struggle is not foreign to me; I grew up in struggle, and I continue to fight, because it is the only way to truly stand up for one's values.
Today, this exploration of human nature has reached a new level: I am professionally studying psychology. This allows me to better understand the mechanics of the human soul, translating its hidden states into the language of painting and expanding the boundaries of my manifesto.
Personalism — An Artistic and Philosophical Movement
Personalism is an artistic and philosophical movement developed by Maria Troika (Mariia Novoseltseva). Its core value is the human being: as a creator, as a carrier of their own time, as the source of the work, and as a part of the reality that made the work possible. For the artist, art does not begin with a painting — it begins with a person.
Personalism Manifesto
I was here. I lived this moment. And this is what remains of me.
I build my art upon the human being. Personalism is a new art movement that I am creating and following. Its core value is the human being: as a creator, as a carrier of their own time, as the source of the work, and as a part of the reality that made this work possible.
For me, art does not begin with a painting. It begins with a person.
I want a flipped perspective on art, and I propose the voice of the four: time, artist, viewer, and painting.
It is their union that gives us the true essence, the ability to see oneself in another, just as the artist once saw themselves in us, a possibility gifted to us by time.
I manifest a philosophy in which, beneath every work, you will find an honest story. As truthful as I am able to expose it.
Future generations will reserve the right to interpret us in their own way, and that is right.
Art is the ultimate container of human presence. And Personalism strives not to lose this presence.
I do not place the artist above the work. Nor do I place the work above the artist. I place them side by side. Because one is incomplete without the other.
Personalism is not a cult of personality. It is a refusal to let the personality vanish. It is an attempt to preserve not only what a human created, but the human themselves within what they created.
The artist is not a random genius fallen from the cosmos. They are the living optics of their time, having absorbed the pains, joys, ambitions, and contradictions of the era. By studying the artist, we study not only them. Through them, we study ourselves.
Events, chaos, memory, and surrounding reality once converge within a human and then become a work of art. The uniqueness of art does not lie simply in depiction. It rests upon the connection of everything that met at a single point: in a single state, a single space, and a single moment that will never be repeated.
A painting is a trace of human presence. By acquiring it, we receive a fragment of someone else's life fixed in time.
Yet today, when technology and artificial intelligence stamp out flawless images, texts, and styles, the main question sounds sharper than ever: what precisely makes a work art?
A machine can repeat a style. But it is incapable of repeating a specific lived moment, human breath, and that very life which surged around the canvas on the day of its creation.
I find myself thinking more and more about how exactly we look at art. When we come to a museum and stand before a canvas, we use all our abilities to pass it through ourselves. We look for our own feelings, memories, associations, fears, desires. We try to understand what the work says to us and about us.
Yet it is only through the four facets, time, the artist, the painting, and the viewer, that one can truly be overwhelmed by the full force of art.
We study the work, but we switch off from the equation the person who was its direct source.
Personalism does not take away the viewer's right to see their own meanings in a painting. But it places a vital question right beside it: what if we first try to see the human being themselves?
This is precisely why I want to destroy the familiar cliché of the art market, where the genuine value of canvases is recognized only after the author's death, and the living person is replaced by a dry museum label with a date and format.
Why do we wait for the master's departure to make their life priceless? Time becomes inaccessible, the artist can no longer be asked or seen looking at their own work today. And then people begin piece by piece to gather meanings around an emptiness.
But why must we wait for death for this to happen?
For me, Personalism begins right here. I want to return the artist into the space of their own work while they are still alive. Not as a marketing accessory to the canvas, but as part of the process itself. A painting can speak for itself, but the artist continues to live within it.
This is precisely why I create a different format of exhibitions and perception. A format where the author is present alongside their works, as if having an intimate dialogue with the viewer from the pages of a personal diary. I share what cannot be found in dry catalogs: why this work was born, what I felt, what I awaited, what I worried about, and what I loved at that moment.
Contact — Inquiries
For acquisitions, exhibition invitations, and studio visits, write to contact@mariatroika.art.