BIOGRAPHY
Alina Orav is a visual artist born in Estonia who recently relocated from Colorado (2023) to Illinois (2026). Born in Soviet Estonia at the time in 1989 to a Russian-speaking mixed family, she grew up in the shifting social and political landscape of post-Soviet Estonia, where questions of identity, language, and belonging deeply informed her worldview. Existing between cultures and histories fostered an early understanding of displacement, transition, and the ambiguity of perspective. Over time she became comfortable simultaneously identifying as one as well as the other.
Raised by her mother and grandparents, Orav developed an early awareness of maternal resilience and intergenerational experience - themes that echo throughout her figurative work.
Having studied art since the age of five, Alina later earned both her bachelor’s (2013) and master’s degree (2017) in painting from the Estonian Academy of Arts. Her studies and professional experience have taken her internationally, including residencies, internships, and studies in Italy, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Norway, as well as numerous street painting projects throughout Europe and North America.
She has presented over 22 solo exhibitions and participated in numerous international group shows across Europe and North America, including solo exhibitions in Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Canada, and the United States. In 2018, she curated Estonia100 – Self-Identity, a group exhibition dedicated to Estonia’s 100th anniversary, featuring 15 Estonian artists in Helsinki (FI), exploring questions of cultural background and identity.
Her work spans painting, sculpture, and drawing, with current focus on themes of birth, motherhood, perception and transformation. In 2017, she was the first art academy student to receive the State Real Estate Ltd Science and Development Grant for the development of her polyview image invention, which she later presented at the International Federation for Theatre Research World Congress in Belgrade.