As I stand between the light and the canvas, I paint the world as it looks through the shadow cast by me.

In Russia, I wanted to become an artist and a writer (I was studying journalism at a university in Moscow) but when I moved to Canada at the age of 18, everything changed. I could barely speak English, which made writing seem unachievable. Art did not feel like a secure path either, so I chose the more stable career path of becoming a lawyer.

Years went by, life was busy leaving little time for writing or art beyond doodling with kids... then came Covid. The noise of rushing through life suddenly stopped and brought a vacuum that could receive everything that was bottling up inside me. I started writing stories, then poetry, then illustrating my words, then, when it felt like not enough, I began turning my poetry into paintings.


And sometimes I wonder what my life would be like had I made different decisions…but I know that all my choices are gifts. That ME, the artist, is the accumulation of every experience, the life that stayed on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, every heartbreak and every win. I needed to walk all the other paths before coming here. I was not ready. 


but I am now.