Muse Series
Sandra Poliakov: Painting Presence
A conversation on attention, creativity, and what really matters in life.
“I speak five languages — but I dream in pictures.”
There is something quietly reassuring about stepping into the world of painter and illustrator Sandra Poliakov.
Not because it is perfectly calm — quite the opposite. Her days are full. There are paintings waiting to be finished, commissions to complete, a children's book to illustrate, emails piling up, and a five-year-old daughter who, as she puts it, reminds her every day what truly deserves her attention.
Yet nothing feels hurried.
Before we sit down to talk, Sandra adds a few final brushstrokes to one of the commissioned paintings she's currently working on. The room falls quiet. We watch without speaking. Somehow, without noticing, the rush of the outside world slips away. We're simply there, immersed in the moment.
Watching her paint feels therapeutic. Not because something extraordinary is happening, but because nothing is rushed. Every movement seems intentional. Every pause is allowed to exist.
Sandra speaks the same way she paints. She isn't afraid of silence.
If she can't immediately find the right word, she simply waits until it arrives. She doesn't rush to fill the space. She lets thoughts unfold at their own pace, almost as if giving them permission to become exactly what they're meant to be.
Looking around her home, and listening to her speak, it becomes clear that Sandra isn't simply painting beautiful scenes, women or flowers.
She's painting what it feels like to be fully present in an ordinary moment.
Her paintings don't ask us to escape everyday life.
They ask us to notice it.
Perhaps that's what makes her work feel so familiar. It reminds us that presence rarely lives in extraordinary moments, but in the ones we almost overlook.
On identity, home and creation
You've lived in many countries and carried many cultures, languages and memories with you along the way.
How has that shaped the person and artist you are today?
Where do you feel most at home?
I think it has shaped me completely.
I was very young when I started moving between countries. As a baby, I lived between my parents in Israel and my grandparents in Bulgaria. Hebrew was spoken in one home, Bulgarian in another, Russian with my grandfather. Looking back, I realise I grew up understanding very early that people don't just speak differently — they experience the world differently.
Language shapes the way we think. Sometimes I even feel like I have a slightly different personality in each language.
Whenever I arrive in Bulgaria, I immediately feel safe. I can speak effortlessly, I can express myself completely. Here, in Hungary, I sometimes feel that my brain is so busy searching for the right words that I forget to smile. I probably come across as much colder than I really am.
But home isn't only about language. It's also about everything you've absorbed without noticing. The colours you've lived with. The way different places teach you to look.
When you arrive somewhere unfamiliar, you suddenly notice everything. And if you spend your life moving between different places, I think you become more sensitive to those visual differences. They quietly stay with you.
Eventually, they become part of the way you see.
You say that you paint because you need a world of your own — a place of calm and belonging.
Do you remember when you first felt the need to create that world?
I honestly think I've always needed it. I was only ten months old when I moved to Bulgaria to live with my grandparents for a while. There isn't a single memory I can point to and say, this is where it began. It's simply always been there.
Growing up, we moved often. We left many things behind. I don't really have boxes filled with childhood drawings or objects that followed me through every stage of my life. Now I find myself doing the opposite. I'm the mother who keeps every drawing her daughter makes.
On Motherhood
Motherhood seems to have changed not only your life, but also the way you see.
How has becoming a mother changed the way you observe the world — and the way you create?
Motherhood slowed everything down for me. It made me notice more.
It also taught me something unexpected — that life doesn't always happen according to my schedule. Sometimes I have an idea, and I simply can't make it happen straight away.
While Noa was little, I always tried to hold on to new ideas and execute them as soon as I could. That often led to stress and took me away from the present moment. I had to realise that this isn't the way I want to live. Ideas come and go, but the time I spend with my daughter is far more meaningful.
I think becoming a mother has made me trust that process much more.
Ideas don't disappear. They wait.
On Rest and Intuition
You are very conscious about rest and returning to yourself every day.
What does "returning to yourself" actually look like?
I haven't yet figured it out totally. I think I'm constantly learning it.
I go through cycles where I want to create everything, achieve everything, say yes to every opportunity.
Then, a few nights ago, I couldn't sleep.
I realised I have so much happening at once — commissions, illustrating a book, running the business, everything.
And suddenly I thought...
"Maybe I can do exactly the same things, just without being stressed."
That thought felt surprisingly radical. Because the work itself isn't the problem.
The stress is.
I realised I was missing life. I was missing Noa's childhood. And I don't want that.
So I keep bringing myself back. Back to my body. Back to my breath. Movement helps me more than anything. I work out almost every day. I meditate and practise breathwork.
Not because they're rituals — I actually don't like making them feel too ceremonial — but because they help me reconnect with myself before the day takes over.
For me, everything starts with the body. When my body relaxes, my mind follows.
You often say you don't rush ideas.
How do you know when something is ready to become a painting?
Not rushing ideas for me means not becoming possessive of them. Because I observed that we often treat ideas as if they're scarce. But they aren't.
"Ideas are not limited."
Today I’m more like, if one idea arrives and I can't make it happen today, that's okay. Another one will come. Or maybe this one will come back when it's ready.
At the same time, if I do have the capacity to act on an idea immediately, I love following that impulse.
There's such concentrated energy in those moments. I try to trust it.
On Womanhood
Your paintings often celebrate women — women who appear both tender and strong.
What aspects of womanhood or motherhood inspire you the most?
I think I always come back to the body.
Through movement, through spending time alone, I've realised how much my body influences my creative energy. I've learned that there are ways I can take care of it, listen to it, move it, that completely change how I feel and how I work.
I also had a really beautiful birth experience, and I think that gave me a much deeper understanding of my own body, as well as a profound sense of connection with women all over the world.
Then, of course, there's Noa. Having a daughter constantly reminds me what it means to grow up as a girl and as a woman. Even though she's only five, she's already changing all the time. Her moods shift constantly, and watching that has made me much more aware of my own rhythms as well.
I've actually started trying to cycle-sync my work. I do my more creative work around the middle of my cycle, planning, sketching ideas, and administrative tasks at the beginning, and by the end I usually already know what needs to be done.
Motherhood has also given me something else that I didn't expect. The ability to step away from work. When I'm with Noa, I have to be present. I don't always manage it — especially these days — but it's something that's very important to me. As parents, we really try to be fully there when we're with her.
Another thing that has become incredibly inspiring to me over the past year is connecting with other women through their stories. As my relationship with my audience and collectors has grown, I've realised how important those conversations are — not only for my work, but for my life as well.
When I work on a personal commission, the visual idea is always secondary. The story comes first. The energy, the feelings, the values. Every commission begins with a long conversation, and from there I gradually transform that person's story into a symbolic visual world. That process has been one of the most fulfilling parts of my work.
On jewelry and pieces that become part of us
I know your rings have stories behind them.
Would you tell us a little about them?
This one is probably the most precious to me.
My husband gave it to me on our first anniversary together — not our wedding anniversary, but one year since we had become a couple. The funny thing is that I had completely forgotten about it. I had no idea it was our anniversary, and I certainly wasn't expecting a present. We were so young. I was twenty-three.
This cigar band has a different story.
It originally belonged to my mum. We often meet somewhere while travelling, and one day I saw her wearing it. I told her how much I loved it, so she bought me the same one. The next time we met, in Bulgaria, I lost it. Maybe in the sea, maybe somewhere else—we never found it. The following time we saw each other, she simply took her own ring off her hand and gave it to me. That made it even more precious.
This one I bought for myself.
It says yes and no. People often think it's about making a decision, but for me it isn't really a question. It's more of a statement. A reminder to say yes, yes to life, yes to listening to what's inside. Yes to paying attention to my own feelings.
And this is the ring I've worn for the longest time.
It's from Israel, where I was born, and it has a Kabbalah inscription on it. There is a meaning behind the text, but it's difficult to explain. For me, it's simply connected to my parents and to the place I come from.
"The rings are the only jewellery that's really for me, because I don't see my own ears or my neck."
I think that's why I've always loved rings the most. They're the only pieces I see throughout the day. They're not really for anyone else.
I don't usually wear bracelets, and if I do, they're very delicate, almost invisible.
Growing up in Israel, jewellery was never quiet. I remember my mum and her friends getting ready to go out — the necklaces, the earrings, colourful bags, lipstick, little pouches tucked inside bigger pouches. Every object had its own place. I still remember the sound of it all…