Olya Avstreyh is Russian-Israeli artist who currently resides in Tel-Aviv. Born in 1988, Olya pursued her education in English studies before moving to the UK for a degree in media management. She returned to Russia in 2013 during the height of the protests and worked for the main opposition channel Dozhd, which has since been banned. Frustrated with the political reality, she pursued a degree in Fine Art in contemporary painting.
Her first serious breakthrough came during the Covid lockdown with her online project Videochat: send nudes in collaboration with artist Jenya Milyukos, which was extensively covered by DAZED and other international publications. Unfortunately, the same exhibition was censored and canceled in Russia. Since then Olya has been exploring the perception of the female body by patriarchal society and rethinking the taboo on nudity. She also examines the complexity and awkwardness of human behaviour and the sense of alienation that she believes defines her generation. Her work, driven by impulse and intuition, is an invitation to confront fears and desires through raw, physical and vulnerable images. Fragility of the human body and psyche is one of the main themes in her art.