Artist Statement
I am a visionary – and history painting is my area of interest.
With each vision, I embark on a journey of development and refinement, allowing the image to grow and evolve before me. Visions arise whilst traveling or dreaming, sometimes as a result of apophenia. The paintings form themselves through observations, personal experiences and association, and so my artworks acquire a surreal quality.
I reflect on today’s problems by resorting to the archetypal narratives of antiquity enshrined in Greek mythology and Hebrew Scripture. These timeless stories inspire and invigorate my visual storytelling. I favor oil as the main medium for my large-scale compositions and intimate portrait paintings as it grants the necessary texture and monumentality painting demands.
photography Jon C Archdeacon
Biography
Anastasia Russa was born in 1980 in the USSR and during her childhood experienced the lesson of freedom given with the short Gorbachov’s epoch. After the fall of the Soviet Union she attended Sunday school. Anastasia studied monumental painting in Moscow and was commissioned to paint murals in sacred and secular interiors. She left Russia in 2018 in order to find freedom her homeland lacks.
She lives and works in North London and is part of Turps Banana community of painters. Russa won the Portobello Wall art commission in 2018. Throughout that year, one London street was enlivened with an innovative 123m2 canvas depicting North Kensington history and portraits of local heroes. She was a finalist of the Ingram Prize in 2019 as well as a contestant in Sky Portrait Artist of the Year 2022.