We recently connected with Agnes Russo and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Agnes thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

My artistic path started when I became a mom with my second child. I was looking for something to relax and to “clean” my head after a very busy and rushing day. Living far away from my family and friends can be very challenging and in some moments of our lives we can definitely feel it stronger.

Our moving to the USA was supposed to be temporary so I was not making too many plans. I was focusing on my family and taking care of my kids. I had a wonderful pleasure to be a part of an expat mom group and through them I got invited to my very first painting workshop. During the class I felt how relaxing the painting process is, how life giving and joyful. I went home with new plans and a mission. Once again, I found my forgotten artistic voice. As a student I used to attend many art exhibitions, art classes and poetry reading. After moving to Scandinavia I didn’t have time and energy to listen to my inner voice. I was mostly focusing on my work and learning a new language.

I’m glad that this changed and I started painting again. “feel in the moment” is my motto and I decided to do it. Evening painting was what I was looking for. I was painting mostly on paper using watercolors. I was creating often, sitting with my night gown and painting while listening to the music. What can be more relaxing? Maybe only Epson salt bath – right?

Soon all my house was ‘dressed” in my art and in my soul. I believe that art is a different form of confession. Its about showing and telling people around and yourself your deepest thoughts, worries, joy ..all the emotions not visible from outside. I don’t like to explain my artwork because I believe it should speak for itself and find the connection with the collector..the special bond and understanding. A silent talk, invisible string connecting the piece to its new home.

It took me some time to figure out my style and energy but at this moment of my artistic life I feel that me and my artwork are deeply connected to each other and we “speak” the same language. Art on paper is my first and biggest love but recently I’m finding a wonderful “connection” with canvases. I’m truly proud and grateful for my artistic path. I’m deeply grateful to be able to share my art with my dearest followers.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

Art was always a part of me. Sometimes a silent one, other times a very open one. In early years I loved to express myself through writing… poetry has a big place in my heart. Drawing and painting guided me during my high school and university. I remember that my art teacher used to say to me: “Your work is beautiful; spend more time on it and will become outstanding.” Yes, I was not always a very patient student. My painting was always about the abstract. Maybe simple for others but so deep and metaphoric for me.

My work evolved from very energetic abstracts movements to quiet, transparent, and light one. I mostly work with watercolors, acyclic, paper and canvas. I love simplicity, minimalist and yet elegant style. I take my inspiration from our beautiful Mother Earth, feelings, conversations and music. My memories and longings play a big role in my work as well. I want my art to be a piece of serenity and tranquility that every house can welcome.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

For me the most rewording aspect of being an artist is to be able to work from home, close to my family. I love being flexible and present for my kids. I also appreciate the fact that I can be creative and free. Moving from country to country can be challenging but ART will always be there for me and I can paint from any place in the world. Meeting new people, sharing the beauty and bringing joy to others is simply priceless and incredible.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Building social media can be very challenging. Or maybe I should say “ can be “a challenge” if you will allow it to be. While algorithms are changing all the time, you really need to follow and be updated. My biggest challenge is that social media, like IG requires a lot of energy and time. There was a time when I was struggling to find free time for painting because I was dedicating all of my time to social media. Did it work? Yes, I managed to organically grow my audience and gain engagement on my profile. But it also created a lot of stress and disappointment if something was not received as I expected.

On early May after I applied to be a verified account from the banner that appeared on my IG page, I received what I thought was an IG form to fill in for finalizing the application. Instead, was a phishing scam. In few minutes I was hacked. The hacker changed my password in the IG account and in my Gmail account linked to IG so that I could not see IG emails warning me that the password was changed.

When I figured out that my Gmail was hacked as well, I promptly changed the password back, regained control of it and then I could see the IG emails. At that point was to late, the hacker already changed 3 times the email and password and even if in the IG email indicate a link to use in case it was not you, it doesn’t exist, and they only point you to the web page with the FAQs in case something is wrong.

According to IG, in this case one can submit a facial recognition video to regain control however this did not work for me right away and never did even in the weeks after the hacking.

Since I have a business account linked to my Facebook account, and as you know IG does not have a customer support center, I contacted the Facebook one asking for help. I did that daily for weeks and every time I was assured that they are taking care of the case, that they would expedite the process but, they did nothing. Even today that the case is solved I still get update emails that they are working on the case and to be patient been assured that they are doing everything in their power to solve the case.n the meantime my IG username was changed and the hacker was posting inappropriate stories and harassing most if not all of you with several different type of scams. I’m so sorry for this.

At this point we decided that enough is enough. We contacted several cyber law firms asking if they wanted to pick the case until we found the “saviors” at “www.thecyberlawteam.com”. Mr. Abraham and Joe Price engaged with Meta litigation attorneys demanding to return me my IG account since I was the legal owner of it. They continued talking to Meta attorneys until one day I finally managed to restore my account.

If you need more info please contact me in private and I can go in more details. I am very disappointed that such a huge social platform doesn’t have a real person customer support that at least for business clients could help in cases like mine and were ignoring my request for weeks.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.agnesr.art
• Instagram: @agnesr_art
• Facebook: agnesr.art

Image Credits
Agnes Russo