Yana was born in 1975 in Nurek, in Tajikistan. Her parents were both engineers and had temporarily moved there to work on the design of the Nurek Hydroelectric Station Dam, the tallest man-made dam in the world at the time. After the dam was finished in 1979, her family moved to Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan and one of the oldest cities in Central Asia. Rounding out Yana’s childhood were her summers in Crimea, in a home built by her Grandfather on the Black Sea.
Yana began to draw and paint very young. She studied under Tachat Oganesov (1922-1991), a nationally recognized artist, art historian, and a senior lecturer at the Ostrovskiy Theater and Artistic Art Institute in Tashkent. At school Yana attended a specialized program with an advanced focus on mathematics and finished with honors in 1991. She then pursued a master’s degree in theoretical math from Tashkent State University.
After completing her degree she felt the need to make a choice; “I didn’t feel that pursuing art as a hobby would be satisfactory enough, and so I gave it up completely.” It painfully felt as though a part of her was forever gone and for many years she never allowed herself to think about it; even her closest friends were unaware of her passion.
In 2008 a series of personal circumstances just naturally triggered a strong desire to create once again.
In 2012 she left a successful career in technology to pursue her passion for art, full time.
After building a large portfolio, Yana continues to create while also offering strategic consulting on a part-time basis.
Yana is currently based in New York City and the Washington, D.C. area.
