I am a Melbourne based artist and oil portrait painter, accepting commissions from private clients and companies around Australia. My works vary dramatically in scale, from small portraits to medium-sized paintings to expansive public spaces. I have always been surrounded by artists, musicians, actors and book-lovers. My father was himself an artist, and my mother encouraged reading, theatre trips, concerts, home plays and artistic endeavours. I was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. During World War II the city became a destination for people from different corners of the former Soviet Union. Writers and workers, scientists and government officials, party bosses and peasants lived side by side. Evacuees from Russia, Ukraine and Moldavia, from the annexed territories of Eastern Poland and the Baltic states, were looking for shelter, often to save their lives. So I grew up in an atmosphere of tolerance and respect for other cultures. As I grew older I spent a lot of time in my father’s studio surrounded by artists. Some of them, my father included, became my mentors. I always knew I wanted to be an artist, and started my journey at an art college as a 14 year old, later graduating from the Benkov College of Arts in Tashkent, and then gaining my Bachelor of Arts from Saint Petersburg University (then called Leningrad). In 1989 I migrated to Australia, and became a citizen in 1991.