Tender

"I was born in the USSR, and subsequently fled to the United States with my family at the tender age of six. I spent most of my childhood and young adulthood in Brooklyn, New York until I moved to Portland, Oregon in 2015. Before I became a professional artist, I lived many lives: studying behavioral neuroscience, experimenting on the sensory systems of fish, working with sea lions at an aquarium, as a counselor for a girl with autism, as a circus arts teacher, a science teacher, and an organic farmer. My journey  now continues as a full-time artist in Portland, where I live with my husband, our two dogs, two geckos, and sixty plants. 

I am self-taught, with no particular allegiance to any one medium, although I find myself working most often with acrylics, watercolors, and pens. I have always been in love with nature and fascinated by ecology. My goal is to merge art and science into a holistic worldview, one cohesive love letter to nature. My artworks are, for the most part, bits of my subconscious mind in their attempts to become conscious content. I often get lost in my works, as I immerse myself in ineffable themes and ideas such as death, attachment, connection, the trap of memory, and many more. I like to incorporate in my artworks literary ideas and song lyrics that touch me. I am also greatly inspired by any rock, leaf, fruit, tree, mountain, pair of eyes, or body of water that I happen upon."