Plants on balcony (2023) Painting by Katia Ansky

Biographical information

Born in 1983 in the Soviet Union in a peripheral industrial town on the Urals, she repatriated to Israel after the collapse of the USSR in 1999. She grew up with her younger brother in a mixed Russian-Jewish family. Her father's origin and national affiliation were carefully concealed by her grandmother Katerina for safety reasons, due to possible persecution from anti-Semitic sentiments in society. Thus, until the age of 16, Katya lived the life of a provincial girl completely immersed in the hardships of survival against the backdrop of an economic crisis in the country, rampant crime, and total impunity of the corrupt sector of power.

Integration into Israeli society was difficult, long, and hard, but despite everything, the passion and love for art outweighed the rest of her life goals. In Israel, family secrets related to the history of the Jewish family were revealed; her grandmother (Raisa Vulfovna Pushchanskaya) told about a family connection with Semyon An-Sky (born Shloyme-Zanvl Rapoport), the author of the famous play "The Dybbuk." Having no material or practical support, this abstract story of a distant relative became a support and guideline in Anskaya's creative search.

Artistic work

Anskaya is a figurative painter whose entire body of work is closely tied to the reality and topicality of the objects and subjects depicted. She works in the style of the "New Barbizon," which is a form of painting practice that emerged in Israel, created by a small group of female artists (also repatriates) that combines the foundations of construction accepted during the era of socialist realism and integrates into it the Israeli color palette, with its characteristic contrasting (southern) lighting and bright open colors. Thus, the "New Barbizon" is a naturalistic figurative painting style with a bright, recognizable style that is interested in social, modern life, marginalization, and artistic aesthetics. The distinctive feature of the style is the rule of using a live model for all elements of the composition and, quite literally, a ban on drawing from photos, as the main goal of the "New Barbizon" is to convey the theme of painting as vividly as possible, which is captured through direct participation in the moment. This is not a new technique but an essential skill of artistic mastery. I believe that this movement towards modernity rehabilitates authorship in an individual work and elegantly unfolds postmodernist initiatives back to their origins, from where postmodernism emerged.

• Nationality: ISRAEL
• Date of birth : 1983
• Artistic domains:
• Groups: Contemporary Israeli Artists