Ainura Barron

My name is Ainura Barron.

My current body of work references my childhood memories and gives me a place to investigate my roots. I’m finding ways to expose the spirit and history of my family. In a way, the work communicates my life passage from the perspective of a person who grew up during the era of the Soviet Union, experiencing Perestroika and Glasnost’ under Gorbachev’s leadership, and who came of age when the Iron Curtain was demolished, bringing an end to the Cold War and giving all of us young people at that time a way to approach adulthood. It was challenging and exciting at the same time. The spirit of freedom was in the air, and we all believed that we could change the world. Those transformations of ideology and our reality made us stronger and flexible. We all witnessed how the ideology and Soviet regime and values collapsed and our lifestyle was breaking apart before our eyes.

As an undergraduate student, I studied the arts many years ago. However, the dramatic changes that took place during the early years of Kazakhstan's independence (my home country) caused me to shift my career aspirations in the direction of art administration and management. I was thus able to gain new perspectives when the borders of my cou...

MFA - Missouri State University, MO, USA
BFA - Kazakh National Academy of Arts, Almaty, Kazakhstan
Almaty Art College