Olga Krimon was born in Odessa, Ukraine. She received her formal art education in the Art School in Kazan, Russia where her family moved soon after she was born. Graduating with honors and winning a city watercolor competition in 1987, she decided at that time to keep art as a hobby rather than a career path.

While at Odessa State University studying English, she won the country’s prestigious language competition and got a chance to study in the United States on student exchange. At the end of the exchange year, she was offered a full scholarship to complete her degree and extend her stay in the US.  While getting her degree, she continued to develop her knowledge of art history and was the only non-art major to have her own studio space on campus and to present a winning research paper in Charlotte, NC. There was no formal academic art education available, but Olga had a chance to experiment with lithography – a printing technique that she had only heard about in her Kazan art school. She was also able to study Art History in France with a group of American students during her junior semester. During her 3 years at Davidson College, NC she helped her family emigrate from Russia, and became acclimated to the American culture through the college campus. Upon graduating Davidson in 1994, she decided to broaden her horizon and simultaneously pursue her love for art by working at Sotheby’s in New York City. While Olga thoroughly enjoyed her experience, this wasn’t the art scene or the lifestyle she wanted to pursue.  She spent the following 2 years in Moscow, designing and helping to implement voice and data cabling infrastructure for Russian and foreign clients – being far removed from the art scene but continuing to draw in her spare time and frequenting art museums in Moscow and St. Petersburg. She then returned to the United States and got her US citizenship.

Olga has worked in the corporate environment for the past 11 years in sales, management consulting (CRM) and project management for companies including PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting (IBM) and Cadence Design Systems. During this time, she also earned her MBA from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California.

It wasn’t until her mid 30s after the birth of her first son that Olga seriously turned to art again, painting and drawing more and more in her spare time. While many of her earlier works are sold or given to private collectors, she continued to look for a serious academic training that would elevate her skills to the level she was aiming for. It wasn’t until she took a workshop with Jeremy Lipking in May 2007 that she understood what her path should be to achieve the technical mastery. She then took a figure drawing class with Glen Orbik (a prominent art educator and illustrator who taught Jeremy) at the California Art Institute, and studied under Jeremy Lipking in his studio in Los Angeles. In the meantime, she continued self-education through books and videos (Richard Schmid, David Leffel, Sherrie McGraw), and spent many of her nights and weekends painting and refining her skills. She is currently building up a portfolio of works, and some of them are presented on this site.

Olga currently lives in Hermosa Beach, CA with her husband and 2 sons.