Taisia Kamski

I was born on January 26, 2006, in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine. Since childhood, I loved to draw — with paints, pencils, markers — and it became my way of being myself. Although I was a quiet and introverted child, I felt most at ease near my parents and a blank sheet of paper. One of my first memories of drawing is when I created a whole series of little cars while we were stuck in traffic. I simply looked at the world around me and transferred it directly onto paper.

Manga became my main creative path. At 18, I self-published my debut manga as a birthday gift to myself when I turned 19 — a symbol of stepping into adult creative life. That work was deeply personal to me; it reflected years of inner searching and emotional reflection from age 14 to 17.

I am completely self-taught — everything I can do, I’ve learned on my own. Independence is important to me. I follow an underground path in art. I create by my own rules. I write first and foremost for myself, as a reader. I have my own sense of beauty, rhythm, morality, and structure — and I don’t expect everyone to understand or accept it.

The themes that matter most in my work are inner reflection, childhood, embodiment, solitude, the connection between soul and body, abstraction, and the blend of beauty and grotesque. I experiment with forms and methods in order to discover a new visual language. My goal is to speak to people through images — to show them my world as I see it.

For me, making art is not an escape. It is truth. It is my way of existing.