About
Artist Irene Nedelay
Irene Nedelay is an American visual artist based in New Your City. She was born in Siberia, where her father's entire family were exiled to from Belarus during Josef Stalin reign of terror.
As far back as she can remember, she always wanted to draw and paint. In Siberia, she attended art school and later enrolled in Art Institute of Novosibirsk State University which she graduated from with MFA in 1989. After graduating, she worked as an art teacher, a muralist, a commercial artist, a scene designer, and an illustrator. She became an active member of the unofficial art movement of "underground" artists and musicians and participated in many of their shows and performances. She also held several one-woman shows in Novosibirsk in 2000.
In 2003, Irene Nedelay moved from Siberia to Saint Petersburg, Russia where she exhibited her works and participated in various art movements. She also began to exhibit her paintings in Europe.
In 2009, Irene moved to New York. Throughout 2010-2024, she participated in many group shows and held more than a dozen solo-shows across the United States, Great Britain, Germany, and Russia. She won many awards and became a member of the National Association of Women Artists (N.A.W.A.).
In 2024, Kelly Reichardt, a highly acclaimed American independent filmmaker, took Irene Nedelay's paintings for filming a new art heist movie “The Mastermind”. The movie had its world premiere at the main competition of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival on May 23, 2025, where it was nominated for the Palm d'Or. It will also screen at the 2025 New York Film Festival. The film is scheduled to be theatrically released on October 17, 2025.
Irene Nedelay now lives in New York City and works in her studio. She continues doing what she does best: drawing, painting and teaching people art.