Yanya, age twelve
Everyone at home calls me Yanya. I picked up a brush for the first time at an art school at twelve, in Minsk — and never really put it down. It wasn’t a hobby that came and went; it became the way I made sense of the world.
About the artist
Janina Vakhovich — YANI ART
Color attracts. Emotions stay.
The Academy, and monumental painting
I studied painting formally, specializing in monumental painting — large-scale, wall- and space-based work that thinks in architecture, not just canvas. That training still shapes how I compose today: strong silhouettes, deliberate rhythm, color that has to hold its own from across a room.
Color first, likeness second
I’m not trying to copy what I see. I’m interested in atmosphere, symbol, and the emotional charge of color — the tension between calm and unease, comfort and surprise. A whale, a goose, a tangle of organic shapes: each is a way to talk about something that doesn’t have an easier name.
The studio today
Every painting is made by my hand in Warsaw — acrylic on canvas, one of one, signed, finished with a protective varnish, and packed with real care before it ships anywhere in the world.
