ST:
Do you recall any early art experiences?

YR:
My parents later told me I painted on the wallpaper when I was two years old, behind the sofa or on the furniture. At age five, they sent me to an art school which had classes after my regular school. I went there until I was fifteen. During my teenage years I read a lot of books including titles by Hemingway, Salinger and Fitzgerald. This made me question school and I became a little rebellious. I used to skip classes and just walk around the city, making sketches of homeless people that had nothing to do except wander around, just like I did. I argued with my teachers and drew or read during class. My parents bought me an easel for my birthday. I turned  my room into a studio. I put something on the walls to protect them, a layer of linoleum on the floor, and I moved the furniture to the side. In this way I had a studio that was around two by two meters.

ST:
Did you decide early on that you would need to leave Ulaan Ude to become an artist? What were some cities in which you dreamed of living? How did you learn about the rest of the world, and about the art that was made elsewhere?  

YM:
I started to learn about art history and other general knowledge on youtube when I was fourteen. I watched documentaries about Picasso, Matisse, Cezanne as well as many nerdy videos where two people would discuss one subject or another.  I learned so much, but it was mostly about the period between old master painting and modern art, but not so much about contemporary art. Not surprisingly, it was a very western view of art history, which I think explains why I was so determined to go to the west. I knew that so much happened in New York, Paris and London. I also really liked Klimt and Schiele, somewhat of a cliché I know, but I was mesmerized by Vienna and decided that I would end up there.

ST:
How old were you when you left Ulaan Ude to pursue your art studies? Can you describe the circumstances that led to this big move? Where did you go? 

YR:
I was seventeen when I left home to go to Saint Petersburg to study painting at the Shtiglitz Academy of Fine Arts. I wanted to move far away from home to begin living an adult life, one which would enable me to pursue my artistic dreams. This did not come easily as I had to get the blessing of my parents, something I only got after my solo exhibition in Ulaan Ude. My parents didn't really take my dream seriously until then. They thought I would become a designer or an architect until some older painters from the region of Buryatia – Balzhinima Dorzhiev, Zorikto Dorzhiev and Zandan Dugarov – attended my opening in 2018. My parents asked them if they considered my paintings to be any good and whether I had talent. The painters spoke well of me and this made a big difference. My parents had confirmation from respected painters.  “Your daughter is an artist!” 

ST:
Were there other women in the academy? Were they similarly poorly treated?

YR:
Actually, there were many strong women in my class who had good technical knowledge. I wouldn't say they were poorly treated, but a couple of times I’d hear from professors something like: “Oh, these works are great, but I cannot count on you. You're a woman, you're going to get married…” Or “When we have a choice whom to accept, of course we choose a man. It's monumental painting we're talking about, it's not designed for women.” But sometimes they would also say: “Some women are so much better at painting than men.”  

ST:
What were some of the positive aspects of studying there?

YR:
I learned to work hard. When I was painting at home, under my parents’ roof, I could always take a break or sleep for eleven hours. I had time. It was chill. In Saint Petersburg, I started to work more than I slept.  I would wake up and paint. I would paint at all hours, and for a while,  I loved it, even when I was copying a painting that I hated, drawing a skull, or learning about anatomy and the skeleton.

ST:
What was it like to have a museum like the Hermitage in the city where you lived?  Did you visit often? Which works were especially meaningful to you?

YR:
I had art history courses in Hermitage almost every week, and as a Shtiglitz student, I could enter the museum for a reduced price, so I went there very often. My most vivid memory is of Matisse’s Dance, but I also enjoyed seeing works by Titian, Rembrandt and Velázquez. The museum is so huge that it is said that one can only see everything if you spend eleven years there.

ST: 
What made you want to leave Saint Petersburg? 

YR:
I was painting so much that my hands started to hurt. Sometimes I would forget to eat, and then I would come home to work on paintings that really meant something to me. That excited me and it made me long for a more inspiring situation. Because I was painting late into the night in my flat, I was often extremely tired, and at some point I started to hate the city and the academy with its strict rules. I ultimately stopped doing anything. I fell ill and didn't go anywhere for a month or two. I desperately wanted to move abroad, I felt a bit defeated, so I took my things from the academy and never returned. I sent my portfolio to the Art Academy in Vienna but I missed the deadline. I then learned of another academy in Linz, flew there in the summer, took the entrance exam and was admitted. 

ST:
Did you speak German already? How was the transition to living outside Russia?YR
I understood a little German, not enough to speak about my art, but enough to feel comfortable. I was nearly fluent in English, and that was useful. Studying in Linz was much more relaxed. I had a nice studio in the city center and I attended classes. I used this year to socialize more, to meet new people, to experience Austria, and to develop more balance in my  life. I was still the last artist in the studios at night but I was less hardcore. The crazy competitiveness of Saint Petersburg was gone and I found the people to be much more open-minded and friendly. I made friends easily and I really enjoyed my time there.

ST:
Did you then transfer to the Academy in Vienna?

YR:
When the academic year ended in Linz, I moved to Vienna. I applied to the academy again, and this time my application was on time and I was accepted.  I have been living in Vienna since 2020 and I very much enjoy the academy and my classes. It is exactly what I was looking for. I am surrounded by motivated people, artists who are very cool and who have strong ambition. We are all together in the studio 24/7, in the center of Vienna, seeing each other from morning to night, sharing lunches and secrets. I feel like we are one big crazy family. In the academy we have this museum with Bosch’s paintings, where we have free access. It is just two floors away from our studios. We have a cafeteria, where we sit and gossip all the time. We have a park in front of the academy, where we drink coffee on sunny days. And of course, we have a backyard, where we have parties. I'm not exaggerating at all when I describe my life in the academy. It's really like this – super fun and amazing – with a pinch of drama as well. 

ST:
After the darkness of Saint Petersburg, you must be in heaven. How has this encouraging environment affected your own work? Have certain professors been especially helpful?

YR:
There were so many professors in Saint Petersburg, who have helped me a lot, who pushed me hard and understood me. What I really liked about Russian professors is that they are not afraid to tell you directly, “This painting is shit. Keep trying.” This approach is not as common in Western Europe where people are more sensitive to harsh criticism and professors don't usually make such strong statements about their students’ work. It is a completely different approach. I suppose this is because art students in the west are more developed than those in Russia so professors speak to students as artist to artist rather than teacher to student. 

When I reflect back, I have been lucky to have had good teachers everywhere. While growing up in Ulaan Ude, I met many talented older people who influenced me, both in my art school and outside. There were painters, sculptors and a couple of movie directors. Then I had the hardcore teachers in Saint Petersburg, who were a bit old school, but in retrospect, I greatly value that experience. In Linz, I had good professors too. They encouraged me to experiment more with my ideas than with my techniques. In Vienna, oh my God, there are so many great professors and different kinds of artists who have taught me so much. I am so very happy that I chose to study in Vienna.

ST:
Let’s talk about your recent works. As I look at the work of the last couple of years, it seems that you really found a way to express yourself with color. Can you describe your evolution in this respect? 

YR:
In Saint Petersburg, one of the professors in the monumental painting department told me that I was not a painter, that I had a graphic approach. I completely disagreed and I was so irritated by his characterization. Did he just call me a graphic painter? Looking back at my works from 2018, I see that I was using black for shadows and white for light. I find that pretty boring now, but I continued studying color theory in Saint Petersburg and in Linz, and tried many different things in each city. Then in Vienna, I dove deeper into my study of color theory and also experimented with different materials. For a short period, I abandoned color, using only umber, ochre, white and black. I thought that by isolating myself from color I would better understand it. Then when I started using color again, my paintings got a lot  more colorful and in a more purposeful way.  I began to use complementary colors. For example, I would juxtapose a yellow light with a purple shadow and I used five or six layers of different colors to create rich, deep contrasts. It was a  lot of fun. For me, color is very often more important than the object  that I am depicting. For example, I painted a red mushroom in the bottom right corner of a painting, not because it had to exist in that painting but because I needed a red dot there.

ST:
I also see a lot more imagination and inventiveness  in your most recent works. You depict groups of characters that are fanciful and colorful. Some appear to have clothing that might be from Buryatia. Others are naked. Who are these figures and what do they represent to you?

YR:
Thank you! Well, I heard a quote that a painting is a living organism, and that a painter is someone who can hear what it tells him to do. In some way, these characters just came to me, I didn't decide  to start painting yellow aliens, redheads or  angry people. They just somehow appeared. I think I need more time to know who they are and what they represent. I  am still processing it and I need to make more paintings before I will know.

ST:
I am specifically referring to three paintings, Conference, Meditating and Redemption, which will be part of your May 2023 exhibition in Los Angeles. Would you describe the inspiration for each of these three works?

YR:
Sure! For Conference I wanted to create a magical scene of a round table with people eating all around it. Sometimes a title precedes the actual painting. This happened with Conference where the creatures are not friends but are there to discuss a problem. 

Meditating is a very abstract painting to me, I just wanted to paint a vertical work where the cold blue is changing to warm reds and yellows. All the rest, the characters and the narrative is secondary to me. 

Redemption was painted in April 2022 during the early days of the war in Ukraine, when some people in Buryatia were speaking out against the war, going to prison for it or were leaving home forever. The  yellow bird character was my main character at that time and she represents freedom.

ST:
Your exhibition is titled I Am Angry, and it includes a group of portraits entitled Angry Girl, Angry Boy, Angry Mother and Angry Grandma. Is this you and your family? Why is everyone angry? 

YR:
No, these portraits are imaginary angry people who have their reasons to be angry. It started with an angry girl which I thought of as a self-portrait. But then I wanted to expand to multiple generations of women, so that's how Angry Mother and Angry Grandma came about. I felt that something was missing so added an angry boy. They represent the minorities who live in Russia. 

ST:
The juxtaposition of the Angry portraits and Conference, Meditating and Redemption is noteworthy to me. I interpret the latter three paintings as possible ways of managing  anger. One might discuss or meditate to cope with anger and redemption could follow. Does this interpretation resonate with you?

YR:
It's such an interesting interpretation! It really does make sense as I painted all but Meditating at the same time, and it followed only a year later. When I created them, in March 2022, I was very angry. I am generally a very calm person, someone who is rather slow to become angry. For a long time, I thought that anger was a very unwise emotion and I avoided it. Whenever something came up that should have elicited anger, I instead felt sad. At some point, I started to reflect on it and tantric buddhism where one can transform anger into enlightenment in various ways including meditation. I have since accepted that anger is a powerful emotion and that it also encompasses a kind of beauty.