VIOLA & OH, SAND!
Process & Materials
I build wall art from things people throw away
My process begins with materials that already lived a life — newspapers that carried yesterday's stories, textiles cut from worn-out clothes, wood salvaged from old furniture, aluminum cans crushed and reshaped. I layer these materials by hand using clay, plaster, and paint until they become something new: bold, tactile, three-dimensional wall art you want to reach out and touch.
Every piece takes 2–4 weeks. The drying alone can't be rushed. Nothing is mass-produced. Nothing is replicated. When a piece is gone, it's gone.
CLIMATE FICTION
I also write climate fiction.
Before I was an artist, I was a writer — and I still am. I write speculative fiction set in near-future worlds shaped by climate change. This isn't separate from my art. It's the same impulse: to take something discarded or overlooked and imagine what it could become.
IT GETS PERSONAL
I was born in the far north of Russia, where summer nights never get dark and tart cloudberries cover the swampy soil of the taiga forest. One of my happiest childhood memories was traveling south to sandy beaches and warm sea — sinking my fingers into soft sand, having it in my hair and marine salt on my skin.
I live in California now, where I raise my son — his mouth full of strawberries, his nights always dark. Here, on the sandy coast of the Pacific, I found my practice. The name Oh, SAND! comes from this: sand is made of the past, eroded and reformed into something completely different. That's what I do with materials. That's what upcycling is.
UPCYCLING NOT RECYCLING
Recycling breaks materials down. Upcycling builds them up. I take what would have been landfill and turn it into art with more value, more texture, and more story than it ever had before.