Zoya Cherkassky-Nnadi (formerly Zoya Cherkassky) is an Israeli artist born in Kiev in 1976 who immigrated to Israel in 1991. Her work focuses on personal experiences, particularly her childhood in the Soviet Union and the experience of migration to Israel. She is also a co-founder of the New Barbizon Group, formed with four other painters born in the former USSR.
In 2015, she created a series depicting everyday scenes from her childhood in Soviet Ukraine, combining intimate personal memories with broader aspects of Soviet life such as cramped apartments and May Day food traditions. Themes of food recur in works like May Day and Tomatoes, influenced by her access to a wider variety of food through her grandfather, a food store manager. This series was produced while she was pregnant with her first child, which she associates with the warmth of the works.
After immigrating to Israel shortly before the collapse of the USSR, Cherkassky-Nnadi began working in 2010 on the exhibition Pravda (published in 2018), which portrays immigration from the former Soviet Union to Israel. The works depict arrival, integration into Jewish life, discrimination, and stereotypes faced by immigrants, particularly Russian women, using scenes drawn from both personal and collective experiences.
In 2010, she co-founded the New Barbizon Group with Olga Kundina, Anna Lukashevsky, Asya Lukin, and Natalia Zourabova. Inspired by the 19th-century Barbizon School, the group emphasizes realism and incorporates African art influences, reflecting the presence of African asylum seekers in Israel. Drawing on their own experiences of immigration and marginalization, the group’s works explore themes of displacement, violence, and the anxiety of not belonging.