Anastasia Saura

I began painting in Moscow in 2022, at the age of 43. I had never studied art and had spent most of my professional life working as a financial journalist. Painting appeared at a moment when words ( the material I had worked with all my life ) suddenly seemed insufficient.
My Moscow works were made during a period of fear, censorship and uncertainty. Looking at them now I see different forms of confinement: political silence, family memory, the routines of work, anxiety and the attempt to preserve an inner space when the world outside becomes overwhelming.
After leaving Russia, I continued painting in Buenos Aires. Color changed almost immediately. My first works in Argentina were brighter, freer and more physical — filled with the intensity of a new country and the experience of beginning again. Over time that freedom gave way to exhaustion and uncertainty. “Argentina III,” painted in 2024, became my last painting there. I stopped painting for almost two years.
I now live in Santiago de Chile. I work primarily with oil and acrylic on canvas and with charcoal and acrylic on paper. Faces recur throughout my work. I rarely know exactly who they are when I paint them. Often I understand what a painting was about only years later, whe...