Marina Antonova (b. 1988, USSR) is a Paris-based visual artist working at the intersection of drawing, photography, and poetic narrative. Her practice explores exile, memory, and the emotional architecture of displacement. Through charcoal, watercolor, and photographic fragments, she constructs moody, layered cityscapes and interiors—spaces marked by absence, solitude, and surreal symbolism.

Born in the small town of Barysh to a Chuvash-speaking family in the final years of the Soviet Union, Marina grew up surrounded by the vast forests and quiet erasures of provincial life. Her background informs a visual language shaped by dislocation, silence, and the search for belonging—recurring themes in her current body of work.

Before relocating to France as a political refugee in 2022, Marina built a dual career as both a painter and photographer. She also worked professionally in illustration and design, developing a precise, emotionally charged visual aesthetic. In parallel, she studied literature under Joyce Carol Oates and Margaret Atwood—mentorships that continue to influence the poetic structure and symbolic depth of her images.

Her work often evokes transitional or decaying spaces—abandoned workshops, rain-slicked streets, or overlooked architectural fragments—infused with psychological tension. Symbolic figures such as red rabbits, wrought-iron barriers, and fractured stairways populate her compositions, forming a personal visual vocabulary rooted in estrangement, transformation, and quiet resistance.

She has held solo exhibitions in France, including at Maison des Artistes en Exil (Saint-Briac-sur-Mer) and the Salon de la Photographie (Le Minihic-sur-Rance), and participated in group shows such as the Nexity Heritage Open Studios, RITUELS at POUSH and Russians agains the War at Recollects. 

Her works are held in private collections across Europe, the US, Japan, and Latin America. She also teaches printmaking and watercolor workshops in Paris and Antwerp.

Marina is currently based in Paris and open to exhibitions, publications, and residency collaborations.