NADIA KISSELEVA  MA

I was born in the former USSR and raised within the deep traditions of Russian culture. My journey as an artist began early, at the age of fourteen, when I entered the Ryazan College of Art. From there, I continued as an honorary student at the Leningrad Academy of Art, where I refined my technical skills and developed a strong foundation in classical methods.

In 1980, I moved to Kenya, a place that transformed my perspective and my practice. Immersing myself in African cultures, I became fascinated by their visual languages, symbolism, and stories. My paintings grew more vibrant, bold, and dynamic, infused with colour and contrast, inspired by my ethnographic studies and the energy of my surroundings.

A decade later, I relocated to the United Kingdom, where I began to explore art as a conceptual space, one that could examine identity, migration, memory, and the human condition. My work shifted away from representation and toward idea-driven projects.

Series like Document, Bags and Boxed, Postcard From and Rare Metals… emerged from this period of reflection, investigation, and transformation.
In 2016, I earned my Master’s degree in Fine Art (with distinction) from Birmingham City University. That same year, my project Stripped, a meditation on the layered construction of identity, was awarded First Prize and later exhibited at the 2019 Venice Biennale as part of Personal Structures: Identities (European Cultural Centre).

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