I am a figurative artist based in London, working in oil, charcoal, and graphite. I paint and draw from life: friends, family, fellow artists, and myself, usually over several sittings.

I'm drawn to faces. I've been known to stare at people on the tube, the structure of a jaw or the fall of light across a forehead enough to hold my attention for whole journeys. What keeps me painting portraits is something stranger though: the act of painting someone seems to change who they become to me. Each sitting yields a slightly different person, even when the sitter is myself.

I trained in drawing for six years at art school in Russia as a child. I return each summer to the Repin Academy summer school in St Petersburg, where I train under the guidance of Nikita Mogilevtsev. In London I have continued my studies through courses with local artists such as Julia Hawkins NEAC ROI and Daniel Shadbolt. I'm interested in what happens when a classical approach meets a contemporary sitter: a charcoal portrait of a friend in Converse trainers, an oil of my partner in an Adidas jacket. The drawing is built the same way it has always been built; the person in front of me is from now.