Tatjana Vasiljeva I was born on October 17, 1981 as Tatjana Tulovska in Ludza, Latvia. My multiethnic family has both Polish and Latvian as well as Russian and Tatar roots. That is common in my home region of Latgale close to the Russian border. At my home I experienced both the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the regained independence of Latvia as well as the previous economic and social collapse of communism. The everyday poverty and lethargy of Latgale as well as the worsening Latvian-Russian language conflict at the beginning of the 1990s became an important experience of my childhood for my person, who also speaks the Latvian language fluently in addition to my Russian mother tongue. For me as for many of my peers joining the EU offered the chance to seek my fortune outside of Latvia. At first, my way lead to the small town of Sligo on the Atlantic coast of Ireland and later to Braunschweig in Germany. However, with growing prosperity I also had to make the painful experience of often long-term separation from my family, friends and my usual environment in Latgale. These experiences, but also the fractures of my childhood and youth are still important inspirations for my present-day paintings. Although I always liked to paint I started to pursue this hobby intensively only in the foreign. In my works, which are predominantly acrylic paintings, more rarely watercolors, I try to express that every dark night also is the home of the light. Because this is the central experience of my life so far in times of change: There is no hopeless situation in life that cannot be turned for the better by the power of optimism.