Alisa Seliverstova was born and raised in St. Petersburg, Russia, and has lived in New York for nearly a decade. Her training includes architecture and screen printing, disciplines centered on structure, repetition, and control. Those systems remain visible in her paintings.
She moved into oil painting through commission. A figurative work required depth and modulation that screen printing could not produce. Oil provided that range. It became her primary medium.
Several recent paintings in Alisa’s work share a restrained blue palette. The color functions as a reduction, a narrowing arrived at through hours of subtraction until only what is necessary remains. Working close to monochrome allows light, shadow, and volume to carry the composition with minimal interruption. Against the visual density of New York, the effect reads as deliberate restraint.
The subjects of Alisa’s work are women, frequently nude and positioned without decorative intent. Animals appear beside them, occupying the frame as parallel presences rather than companions. The arrangements recall classical composition without quotation or reenactment.
In Lida and the Giraffe, a woman remains still within the frame. The giraffe replaces the expected mythological counterpart, altering the visual balance without explanation. In another painting, a woman rides a horse with a falcon on her arm. The reference is recognizable, though the image avoids costume or theatrical emphasis.
These figures move through familiar urban environments drawn from daily experience. The settings function as lived spaces and not as subjects themselves. The everyday backdrop holds light, pause, and repetition, forming a quiet stage without narrative instruction.
