My name is Natalia (Nata) Drachinskaya. I'm an artist born in the USSR and raised in Russia. Me, my husband, two kids, and a dog left Moscow in March 2022. We then lived in Armenia, UAE, and, finally, we are in California, USA.

I work with the theme of family narrative and family memories. Also the mechanisms of personal reassembling in the fast changing world are in the focus of my art practice. I investigated the story of my ancestors and built up a family tree five generations back. I always knew it was important to know your routes. However, immigration has helped me understand how crucial it is to cope with tough times. The story of my family is the story of fears and resilience, making hard decisions in the times of WWI, WWII, GULAG labor camps, USSR, KGB, cruel 90s, stagnation, totalitarian regime, and military invasion to Ukraine. Only immigration revealed how deep my personal fears are. I still feel fear to speak freely as I have my close ones in Russia, and my words can be used to harm them.

My first university education was economic. Then I graduated with a two-year program, "New Strategies in Contemporary Art," by ICA Moscow. I worked as a photographer and as an artist. I had a studio in Moscow and participated in the exhibitions and art fairs. I was a member of an artist-run community. I loved my life there. However, it ended on February 24, 2022. I know that I'm included in the "black list of artists" in Moscow because I signed an anti-war petition among other artists. All those who signed are not exhibited in the museums and galleries that are affiliated with the State Ministry of Culture (90% of Russian galleries).

My new art life started here in Santa Clara, California, in 2023. Finally, I have a small studio in my house. I work with my favorite mediums: concrete sculptures and paper collages. Concrete reminds me of my homeland with Soviet modernist architecture and concrete basements and fences. I made modular sculptures to show the material can be friendly and cooperative, as the sculpture can be reassembled by moving its parts.

Also, I love to work with paper as it differs from solid concrete with its fragility and lightness. Paper is the material you can find everywhere. It helped me to save my psyche while we were migrating from country to country. I made collages and gifted them to my new friends from those countries. Both modular sculptures and collages are metaphors for our identity. We can assemble and reassemble ourselves many times. Yes, there are periods when this reassembling is extremely painful and morally complicated, but it is the only way to stay a human being and to keep human values.

Now I'm building connections with the local people and the new place. I volunteer at the Cantor Art Center (Stanford University). I am a mixed media instructor in the Pacific Art League (Palo Alto). I passed two final stages of ESL program, graduated one term in a Sculpture class at DeAnza College.

I hope for better. I believe in people. Sometimes I feel depressed, however, I keep going and continue my art practice. I know that my superpower is resilience learned from my ancestors. I’m happy to share it through my artworks.

Let me introduce myself

What is it to be Russian now?