Olga Bologo
Olga Bologo is a self-taught artist born in Nizhny Tagil, in the Ural Mountains of the USSR, in 1982. At the age of four, her family relocated to Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India, where her father worked in the steel industry. Growing up in an unfamiliar yet vibrant environment, she developed an early fascination with nature and painting.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Olga returned to a homeland in upheaval—grappling with economic, social, and spiritual turmoil. Unable to pursue formal art training, she instead studied English as a Second Language, later earning a PhD in Comparative Linguistics. Her research on conceptual metaphor—its role in human cognition and emotion—deeply influenced her artistic perspective.
In 2015, Olga moved to Santa Barbara, California, where her passion for painting was rekindled, enriched by her parallel exploration of photography. Recognizing the synergy between the two mediums, she began experimenting with light and composition. To refine her technique and develop her own artistic language, she has studied under renowned contemporary watercolorists, including Ilya Ibryaev, Sergei Kurbatov, Marc Folly, Konstantin Sterkhov, and Yuko Nagayama.
Her work primarily explores landscapes, architecture, still lifes, and everyday scenes—yet what she seeks to capture transcends the visible. She is drawn to the fleeting, the transient: emotions that shape our perception of the world, just as the world, in turn, resonates within us.
"I do not aim to impose my imagery on the viewer or replicate a scene with precision. Instead, I am a seeker—hoping to evoke the recognition of a long-remembered afternoon light, a foggy morning as nature stirs awake, a flower passing through its life cycle more swiftly than we do, or the quiet thought of a loved one. My work is about the intangible feelings that bind us together."
To learn more about Olga and her art, contact her at