Anna Shukeylo was born in St. Petersburg, Russia and moved to the United States in 1999. Her paintings draw from recollections of her childhood in Saint-Petersburg, Russia. When her family left suddenly for the United States when she was eleven, all that remained was clear but nostalgically haunting mental imagery of her former apartment. Shukeylo’s geographic remove and longing for the dwelling which she can no longer call home create an internal struggle. Such a struggle she is compelled to describe on canvas. Shukeylo pours thinned paint and juxtaposes impasto shapes on top, often in exaggerated color, to create hovering and uneasy optical effects that blur lines of real, remembered and fantastical space. Furthermore, by combining clashing planes and overlaying patterns replete with historical significance to time and place, she creates the sensation of human absence in her work. In her recollections, the energy of vacant apartment rooms still feels inescapably familiar.