THE ARTIST
Olga Anthony
Painter & art teacher · Mauritius
Olga Anthony studied at the Academy of Arts in St Petersburg, Russia, before making Mauritius her home more than thirteen years ago. The move from the cool, classical north to the bright Indian Ocean reshaped her palette — and her subjects.
She works mostly en plein air, painting on location and directly from life. The subjects are the island as she finds it: the salt pans at Yemen, fishermen’s houses along the coast, the seven-coloured earth at Chamarel, a banana flower from her own garden.
“A brief, luminous impression — something that cannot be held for long, but can be felt.”
Watercolour is her first language, valued for its transparency and its honesty: there is no hiding a hesitant mark. Alongside it she paints in acrylic and gouache, and draws in ink, charcoal and oil pastel. Each piece is a signed original, rooted in a real place and a real moment on the island.
From her studio she also teaches — children and adults, beginners to the more experienced — passing on the patient craft of looking closely. It is the same discipline that runs through every painting: to notice, and to keep.