Kiev will always cradle a part of my heart and I will always cherish the memory of the buckeyes, the puddles, and the stray kittens in the city I called home. I was born in Kiev, Ukraine in 1981.

When I was almost three years old, my preschool teacher had a serious conversation with my mom. The teacher was concerned; she had never before seen a child who absolutely could not draw a ball-apparently I could not. Scared, my mom brought home from her engineering job a roll of paper and laid it out on the living-room floor. I drew fairy tales, as I explained to my parents.

I remember loving to draw. I remember my toys. I remember every piece of furniture, none of which I have seen in many years. And I remember being happy.

In April of 1986, I found out about a nuclear explosion at Chernobyl. The radiation threat was frightening, I knew. (Kiev is about 60 miles away form Chernobyl.) My parents were worried and we were moving to Siberia where my aunt's family offered to share their one room apartment. We spent two years in the cold city Noyabrsk. My grandpa in Kiev was sick and we moved back to Kiev to be able to look after him. But he did more for me than I could do for him. He walked me to school, cooked for me when my parents were at work, read fairytales to me to make me eat, sat with me while I did my homework, refused to understand that my parents could not get some things for me in the country which could not provide for its citizens.

At the age of seven, I began to attend my first art class, taught by an elderly gentleman everyone called "The Artist." He was a fascinating man who told stories and sparked children's imaginations. He taught his young students to paint air, to see color, and not to be afraid. There is no white paper, he said, everything is filled with colors and shapes. As I began third grade, I started taking a class at a recently opened art studio. My teacher, Larisa Yur'evna, was a dedicated and gentle person who I was always glad to see. I know she enjoyed teaching.

As I look back I am amazed at how fearless I was. I saw no restrictions and drew everything without inhibition. A striped mammoth with a rainbow fountain exploding from its trunk. My future self with a mermaid's tail, sitting on a Pegasus, racing through the cosmos.

Drawing and painting were a great relief in an uneasy life. We had a chance to immigrate to the United States where my grandpa's brother lived with his family. The application process was lengthy and every day my grandpa was getting weaker. He died one year to the day of our flight to America.

On February 28, 1992, my grandmother, my parents, and I were in the U.S.. I could talk about the difficulties that followed, but these were different than what we faced before. We were striving for a better life and we had a chance. So instead of going into farther detail, I will get to the point of what IGweb is about.

In the galleries on this website are most of the pictures I have done from 1995 to 2000 under the instruction of Evelyn Gerasimenko as well as some independent works. I've been told to talk about my works and what kind of art I like most. Honestly, the jumble of thoughts I have about this is not coming together into a coherent explanation. So far I have focused on learning to draw and to use different media. But I can't put into words the feeling of holding a brush in my hand, of my wrist moving by itself, of colors deciding their own fate. And although most of the works I've done are academic, studies and still-lives-for which I have been criticized-I believe that anyone who has ever known that feeling must understand that whatever I do (even a "boring" still-life), it is mine and it is a part of me: every brush stroke is personal, every line exposes me. (I have also been criticized for taking academic drawings close to heart.)

To answer a question: I have a soft spot for impressionism. To say a bit more, I don't have any real preferences. I am amazed by all good art, whatever that may be. I can't define my proclivities because I really don't understand art. And as long as it is a mystery, I have something to look forward to.

Irene Giller, 7/9/2000