Anna Kostritskaya

Anna Kostritskaya’s work carries an undeniable urgency, each brushstroke infused with a tension between fragility and defiance. Her art does more than depict; it preserves, resists, and remembers. Born in Ukraine, her creative journey has been deeply intertwined with the turbulence of her homeland. Since the full-scale war began, her work has taken on an even more urgent role, serving as a form of documentation, capturing emotions, losses, and the resilience of her people. Her paintings often feel like open wounds, yet within them lies tenderness, a refusal to let beauty be erased by destruction. Working across multiple mediums - painting, photography, and mixed media, Kostritskaya employs different artistic languages to express the unspeakable. In her portraits, faces emerge from the canvas like whispers, layered with texture, almost as if they are fighting to remain visible. There is a quiet intimacy in her work, a recognition of individual stories otherwise lost within the vastness of war. Much of her practice is rooted in the act of bearing witness. Her work explores displacement, identity, and the intersection of personal and collective history. Her photography, in particular, captures fleeting moments, glimpses of life that feel sacred in their ordinariness, a stark contrast to the overwhelming instability surrounding them. Her creative process is instinctual, driven by emotion rather than rigid intent. She has described it as work that decides its own path, rather than one that is meticulously planned. Yet, despite the weight of her subject matter, her art is about endurance. It embodies the human spirit’s refusal to be silenced. Beneath the layers of grief, there is strength. There is the unbreakable.