Prelude 2: Senior Showcase will feature work by New World School of the Arts’ High School senior class.

The exhibit is curated by Yana Payusova, whose paintings and sculptures blend the styles and symbols of folk art, Russian icons, graphic poster art, illustration and comics, and reflect her cultural heritage and her training in traditional Russian realist painting. Yana will mentor the students throughout the spring semester, meeting with them remotely and coaching them as they develop their final project at NWSA and for this group show. 

Yana Payusova was born in 1979 in Leningrad, USSR. Classically trained as a painter at the St. Petersburg Fine Art Lyceé, she later immigrated to the U.S. and received an MFA from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her paintings and sculptures blend the styles and symbols of folk art, Russian icons, graphic poster art, illustration and comics, and reflect her training in traditional Russian realist painting. Exhibitions at recent venues include the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Howard Yezerski Gallery (Boston), Mimi Ferzt Gallery (NYC) and Galerie Caprice Horn (Berlin). Payusova is an Assistant Professor and Painting Area Coordinator in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Texas at Arlington.

Free and open to all, the exhibition is on view May 20–June 3, 2022. For more information, visit nwsa.mdc.edu.

Thanks to the support of Mitchell Wolfson Sr Foundation, we partner with New World School of the Arts to connect Commissioner’s aspiring art collector base with the next generation of emerging and accomplished visual artists and photographers. 

Thumbnail image of Yana Payusova, courtesy of The Museum of Russian Art.