Oksana Basarab

Oksana Basarab is a Ukrainian artist currently living and working in Sydney, Australia. She moved in late 2024, bringing with her a deep connection to her homeland and a background shaped by both fine art and illustration.

She holds a Master’s degree in Art Conservation and worked for several years as a children’s book illustrator. Her early creative focus was on emotions, particularly how they are experienced by children, a theme that continues to influence her work today, now explored through abstract painting.

Basarab uses painting as a form of self-inquiry and quiet reflection. Her portrait series Shades of Sadness is a personal response to the ongoing war in Ukraine, visual meditations on grief, resilience, and emotional endurance. In this series, Basarab invites the viewer into an emotional space where memory, lived experience, and inner states quietly converge.