Tag: portrait painting

Olga Hiiva paints the faces that were never allowed to remain. Working on tablecloths, nightgowns, and worn domestic fabrics, she restores presence to lives erased by violence and silence. Her portraits are not memorials of suffering, they are acts of return, carrying grief, love, and survival across generations, and insisting that what was meant to vanish is still here.

In this studio visit, Carola welcomes us into her bright upstairs space in Frankfurt am Main. She talks about how she creates her paintings, the role music plays in her process, and the comfort she finds in the rhythm of her work. Surrounded by light, color, and the quiet presence of her cat Max, Carola shares how her studio has become a place where movement and stillness meet.