Tatiana Khudoyarova-DiDonato was born in Vladivostok, Russia and grew up in the prisoner transit center of Magadan during the Stalin era. With only one road in and out of Magadan, this remote highway leads from Magadan to the gold-mining region on the upper Kolyma River. It is known as the 'Road of Bones' because of the number of prisoners who died during its construction. It was in this remote region of the Far East of Russia where Tatiana learned her unique style of art, and where destiny allowed her to be educated by some of the finest minds of Russia.

As she grew up and times changed inside of Russia, she turned her life to the caring of others and became a doctor. She became a renowned allergist and pediatrician in the Far East, won several national awards for developing new medical techniques to deal with asthma in children, and eventually devoted herself to finding homes for the many orphans who live in the Far East of Russia.

Through a fateful sequence of events, she met her future husband Joe DiDonato, when he was working with the Russian Department of Education on the feasibility of using distance learning to teach the children in the remote orphanages. Tatiana was his interpreter and guide for that life-changing trip. Love bloomed, they married, and Tatiana has now relocated to the Southern California area, where she has lived for several years with her new husband in the town of Newbury Park. Unable to practice medicine in the United States, she has once again returned to her first love, art, and to the style she learned in Magadan. The bright palette and layering styles instillen in her by her teachers in the Stalin camps have come alive again, and she has moved from her bright, still life paintings to the intriquing faces that have become her style. Her new work sells in Monticeto, Ojai, Thousand Oaks, and several other cities in the area.

You can reach Tatiana at tatiana1452@verizon.net. She hopes you enjoy her work in these next several pages.