Olya Avstreyh (b. 1988, Russia) is a painter whose psychological scenes explore the subversive female experience. She draws from the creative and manic spark of her girlhood, alongside complex experiences of womanhood and immigration. Her own photography, literary and cinematic references, and poetry layer and document these shifting selves. 

The focus of her gaze is a spectrum of ‘situations’: a messy mix of loneliness, isolation and dark fairy-tale romance. Avstreyh invents personas who become her alter-egos, free and brave, violent and mysterious. The spaces they inhabit blend the real and the imagined. haunted houses, claustrophobic rooms and distant landscapes become vessels that can both imprison and liberate.