About the artist
Ann
Demi.
Ann Demi was born in Bologoye, a small town between Moscow and St Petersburg, and grew up between her grandmother’s home there and her parents’ home in Moscow. Her earliest memories of art date to the age of five, when she attended a studio run by an artist in a Moscow apartment. The children painted on large sheets of paper, modelled with clay and staged scenes inspired by different historical periods. The imagery of ancient Egypt — its mythology, architecture and sense of mystery — left a lasting impression.
During her school years, Demi attended painting classes at Moscow’s Palace of Pioneers, joined plein-air trips and took part in student exhibitions. As adult life became occupied by study, family and professional responsibilities, art became less regular but never disappeared. It continued through sketches, small watercolours and creative work shared with her children.
A series of creative retreats gradually returned painting to the centre of her life. Discovering acrylic opened a more physical and spontaneous way of working, while meditation and periods of silence sharpened her attention to colour, change and the unfolding present. At one retreat she created her first large-scale work, a two-metre painting that gave her a new sense of freedom and confidence. After moving to Serbia, her practice became sustained and ambitious.
Now based in Novi Sad, Demi usually begins without a predetermined composition. By watching paint spread, meet and transform, she identifies emerging forms and develops them through successive layers. Her paintings evoke inner landscapes rather than describe fixed narratives. They reward time and close attention, allowing each viewer to discover a personal constellation of images and meanings.
Explore the worksANN DEMI / 2026
Her story, in full.
An illustrated biography and artist statement trace the path from a lifelong private practice to the work Ann Demi shares today.
In her own words
I rarely begin a painting with a fixed image. I begin with colour, music and a period of uninterrupted attention. Paint moves across the surface, colours meet, and unexpected structures appear. My role is to notice what is already beginning to emerge and to help it become visible.
Some works arrive in a single concentrated session; others develop slowly through several layers. Even the paint left on my palette may become the ground of the next canvas, creating a material connection between one work and another. I am interested in the moment before an image is fully named — when it can still hold several meanings at once.
Mindfulness has shaped the quality of attention I bring to this process. It is not a subject I illustrate, nor do I present painting as therapy. Instead, it helps me remain receptive to uncertainty, movement and subtle changes in colour. I think of the resulting spaces as inner landscapes: layered, shifting and different for every viewer.
My paintings are not intended to be understood at a glance. I invite viewers to spend time with them, notice what first remains hidden and allow their own memories and associations to enter the work. For me, painting is a way of making attention visible.
Ann Demi