Axenia Golban (ah zeh nee ah gol bahn)
I had the pleasure to be in an art gallery in Marrah once. There were pieces on display from a local artist who I had heard wonderful things about. I was eager to see if it lived up to the reputation. What I didn't expect was to walk into the gallery to find nothing but grey canvases lining the walls. I thought, perhaps, that someone had played an elaborate trick on me, but then I realized that the colors and the images that had been described to me were entirely enflux effects. Being immune to such things, I would never be able to see them. And yet, somehow, I know they must be masterful.Axenia Golban is an imagofist known primarily for her paintings which rely on enflux techniques to create colors and images from a single shade of grey pigment. As a devout member of the Followers of Grey Water, she relies heavily on her faith for inspiration, taking the hallucinations caused by drinking water from the northern Aici River and using enflux effects to recreate them. Her work can be found in the Fiereze Gallery in Marrah where she maintains a painting studio at which visitors come to watch her work.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Axenia spent her earliest years in an orphanage on Keeltara Island where at the age of six she would manifest Power of Flux. Even at a young age and with the limited resources of the orphanage she found great joy in drawing, painting, and other creative endeavors. At the age of nine she was adopted by a couple from northwest Vinato. Her adoptive parents were nice enough, and they were happy to support her artistic interests, but she was not prepared to live the life of a Follower of Grey Water.
Axenia's parents did not necessarily force her to convert to Niktamism, but living in a community so close to Tamik's Hollow made it very difficult to resist indoctrination. When she was thirteen, Axenia would finally drink from the tainted glass. For three days Axenia slipped in and out of fevered hallucinations, finally waking to proclaim that Tamik had shown her visions that she could not describe in words. Thus began her true dedication to developing her painting skills.
Axenia's desire to master her skill would lead her to enroll in the artistic Flux program at the Sharliany Institute in Marrah in her late teens where she would develop her artistic eye alongside her enflux techniques. It was as she was learning color manipulation effects that she was struck by the sensation of Tamik's presence. She returned home soon after in order to learn what Tamik was trying to tell her. Following another Aician water induced hallucination, Axenia realized that the visions she received from the grey water were akin to the enflux effects she could create with paint. Something brilliant from something mundane.
Axenia would return to Marrah with renewed focus on mastering color manipulation effects, particularly illusory effects rather than physical ones. Her final portfolio would be comprised of six canvases, each painted with a single color of pigment but displaying a rainbow of colors. Her professors were impressed, particularly the descandel on the grading committee who saw nothing but solid colored canvases while his colleagues described brilliant pieces, confirming her enflux illusory color manipulation skills.
Axenia's skill earned her entry into the art community in Marrah, but it would take several years of honing her craft before her work would be accepted to a proper gallery rather than a local artist shop. Her first proper exhibit titled Visions from the Protector was the first to be painted using only grey pigment. This success reinforced her belief that she was meant to share the visions Tamik shared with her. in 1262 she would open her own studio in Marrah where she continues to work to this day.
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