Olga Chernysheva studied at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) in Moscow until 1986 and at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam from 1995 to 1996. She uses her paintings, watercolours, objects, videos and photographs to observe, interpret and recompose the everyday scenes she witnesses. Her palette of images captures daily life in Russia, placing the emphasis on ordinary scenes in particular, which enables her to reveal the complexities and paradoxes of a society shaped by its post-Communist transition and neoliberal position. She draws on Soviet archetypal imagery and its visual canons, such as demonstrations and popular public celebrations (March, 2005) but also on the chance events that unfold before her camera (Marmot, 1999; In the Train, 2003; Anonymous Part 1 and Anonymous Part 2, 2004).

Her oeuvre is imbued with nostalgia, inspired at times by the pictorial tradition of the early nineteenth century, from German Romanticism to Russian Realism. She has produced two videos, one on the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow (Tretjakovka, 2002) and the other focusing on the works held by the State Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg (Russian Museum, 2003), in which her camera plays with blurring and mirror effects as it oscillates between real and painted figures, exteriors and interiors; the films are complemented by charcoal drawings reproducing the sequences and frames. In 2009 she released L’Intermittence du coeur, her take on Pavel Fedotov’s famous Russian painting Encore, again encore(1851-1852). In 2001 the artist represented Russia at the Venice Biennale and in 2009 was guest of honour at the Moscow Biennale.