"Flamenco Dancer" Painting

I am a British artist, born in Russia, and a third-generation painter on my father’s side. My work blends traditional techniques with a contemporary sensibility, exploring how likeness and abstraction meet in painting. Alongside my studio practice, I am completing a PhD in Medieval Art and Philosophy at the King’s Foundation School of Traditional Arts in London, where I research the depiction of the human form. I paint in oil, wax, and egg tempera, using gilding and natural pigments to create luminous surfaces where figures seem to shift between the seen and the unseen. My paintings are about presence and perception — how inner vision and external reality overlap to form images that feel both intimate and universal. I have painted portraits for public figures, collaborated with designers and writers, and exhibited internationally, including as a finalist in the Figurative Category of the International ARC Salon in New York. What drives me is connection: I want my work to spark recognition in the viewer, a sense that the painting speaks to something both deeply personal and shared.