As the world becomes more interconnected and people more often look for a better life in a new country, it’s important to understand better what it means to be a transplant and how large groups of people try to make sense of their new home. My paintings offer a glimpse into an insular immigrant community that can often form in the new homeland.
I am fascinated by the fact that many immigrant communities, if they are large and do not have close ties to their countries of origin, do not follow the political and cultural evolution in their home countries but instead create a completely new universe. The resulting subculture is based on memories of a place in time that no longer exists and is unlike their new home or the old one.
My subjects are rooted in aspects of my experiences or fantasies derived from them. When I was 11, my family moved to Brooklyn, New York, from Minsk, Belarus. As an immigrant, a refugee from the former USSR, I am fascinated by the Jewish immigrant community in Brooklyn hailing from former Soviet Union countries and the absurdities and contradictions that abound in it. Brighton Beach in New York City is the largest concentrated immigrant community of post-soviet Jewish refugees in the US. Despite many of its residents living in the USA for 20-30 years, Brighton Beach and Sheepshead Bay neighborhoods in Brooklyn continue to be places where one can find employment, relationships, and entertainment without ever needing to speak a word of English. Former USSR countries have evolved, yet Brighton Beach remains frozen in the 1990s post-USSR in many ways, including fashion, culture, and values.
I paint the everyday moments encapsulating that sometimes insular diaspora experience, where poverty and extravagance are inexplicably coupled and old-world values constantly clash with modern American culture. My series offers a window into this world from the eyes of an American who nevertheless has an intimate understanding of her subjects’ habits and prejudices.
I aim to document the particular way of life that is a fleeting cultural phenomena. This Post-Soviet Brighton subculture will soon evolve into something completely different as older residents pass away, younger generations assimilate into more general American culture, and new waves of immigrants to the neighborhood will bring different views and ways of life.