Venting (track 1)

I was born in 1964 in Moscow, Russia and immigrated to the US in 1980. My personal history, which bridges the East and West, is to a great deal responsible for the art I make. The experience of coming from a restrictive regime of Soviet Russia to a US democracy and its struggle with issues of human rights and justice is being played out in my work. I developed interests in archaeology and anthropology while studying at the University of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the 1990’s. I currently reside in Connecticut where in the past several years I have been exploring traces of human existence in sites such as dwellings and institutions, which might have been abandoned or somehow forgotten. There is a certain tension and uncertainty that marginal spaces like ruins evoke in us. I like to think of my projects as an archeological exploration that leads to art. My work manifests itself in paintings, photographs, video, sculpture and installations.