- Hello, I'm Olga Alexeeva, and I am the artist.

I came to United States in 1991, couple weeks before the Russian coup, but this time in nineties, the political situation become so severe.

People didn't have food.

It was very difficult to survive.

My Russian experience has a long history of oppression.

For me to be an artist in Russia, you had to go through academy.

You could not be a free artist.

People who were outside of that box, they were prosecuted.

We did not have freedom of words, freedom of expression, but at that time, when I grew up in Russia, I was dreaming about freedom.

I had American dream.

I came to United States with no language.

I went and worked at McDonald's, that was my stage.

I learned all the utensils, the names, and that was my first university.

And then something happened in my private life.

Then I had unfortunate love story that broke my heart.

I was on rock bottom with all this emotional trauma.

And then painting came and pulled me out of that hole, and I was looking for respite.

And I stumbled upon paintings very accidentally.

I started and I could not stop.

And that was my turning point.

I started to paint, I started to go to the workshops, to the different exhibitions.

Took some different lectures through different teachers, and I painted a lot of works.

I did not need to speak English to know about Van Gogh and Gauguin and Rembrandt and Botticelli.

But let's say if we cannot communicate through here, you draw something, a stick figure.

I draw something, stick figure.

We understand each other, it's universal human language.

You get a color, you splash the color on the canvas, and it's gonna express your soul.

If you have some difficulties in your life, go paint.