Artist

Biography

I was born and raised during the Soviet Union’s final years. Five years after the collapse of the Communist Empire I graduated from an art college in Moscow with a degree in embroidery and fashion design. My rigorous education included academic drawing, painting and composition from still life, portrait, and figure to plein air landscape, flowers, and animals. The day after graduation, having never traveled outside of USSR, I immigrated to the United States. I was twenty-one years old. I married the man who was the sole reason for my coming to the U.S. As I started living my life as an everyday American citizen I felt like a heavy load had been lifted off my shoulders and for the first time I experienced, something I never thought possible to experience in real life, happiness. During my first few years in the U.S., I was plagued by nightmares. That is when I started to realize that prior to immigrating I was living in a nightmare. To help me overcome my dreaded past I used painting as a form of meditation. My every artwork represents the hours I spent in a world without pain and suffering, without evil. I capture my cherished harmonious serenity on canvas and share it with viewers hoping it would help them too. I paint primarily en plein air and often hike to new, undiscovered by artists locations. I use Old Holland oil paints and Raphael Linen panels. I teach academic drawing and oil and watercolor painting classes at my gallery in Topanga and en plein air workshops in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Organization(s)

American Impressionists Society, California Art Club, Oil Painters of America