Veta Bakhtina

Yelizaveta “Veta” Bakhtina (1982-) immigrated to Colorado from St. Petersburg, Russia with her family in the 1990s and now lives in Toledo, OR. Her favorite medium is oil painting. Veta views her Russian heritage as integral to her art. This is reflected in her chosen subject matter, color palette, and the style of her work. Many of her pieces are inspired by the time she spent as a child at her family’s dacha, a country home outside the city used for relaxation and family farming.

Her work balances portrayals of lived experiences and colorful dreamlike landscapes that capture a nostalgic sense of childhood fantasy. She feels she has been an artist for her entire life and that her Russian heritage has played a pivotal role in her work, especially in her early pieces. In addition to her oil paintings, Veta has painted murals, created a divination card deck and hand-drawn coloring books, and published a children’s book titled The Magic Traveling Bunkbed and the Key to Moon City.

The book follows a child named Borgi and their hedgehog Yojik on a nighttime adventure to the moon. Like her paintings, it draws on her experiences at the dacha in the Russian countryside and incorporates other themes of Russian culture and language while crafting a story of childhood imagination. In Veta’s interview, she discusses several paintings influenced by her Russian background and some projects she is currently working on.