Masha Shugrina

I am not a full-time artist. In my day job I am a Computer Science researcher, and my passion for art and painting extends to a passion for creating new digital media.
However, perhaps because I have not succeeded in creating a perfect digital medium yet, my heart still lies with painting. To me, oil paint is as alive and visceral as blood in my veins, a perfect substance to birth my emotions in.

In life, it is tempting to wonder sometimes, what is all of this for? To me, the most fascinating thing about humans is our ability to collect, as into a compact pool of water, all our experiences, and to condense them into something interpreted, rife with meaning and intensity, - a private mirror of the world. Life's meaning is only manifested when we reveal our mirrors, so that we may borrow meaning from each other, if on some days we fall short of it ourselves. In my art, I uncloak before you my mirror, my meaning.

You may notice that my art tends to be dark, sometimes verging on grotesque. It is not that I am a dweller of darkness, a pessimist, a drama queen, a breeder of monsters. It is true, for me the undercurrents of the world are filled with darkness, and yet, after swimming in them I emerge laughing. In hyperbole I find hu...

I do not have a formal art education. My degrees are in Computer Science and Mathematics from Boston University and MIT.

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