I was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey in 1947.  My parents were immigrants from Moldavia in the former Soviet Union, where they grew up in a small village, close to the land and to nature.  As a child I attended St. Peter and Paul's Russian Orthodox Church, which was filled with icons, gold, candles and paintings of the Holy Family and the Saints.  I feel that these early religious images have had an influence on my art today.

My paintings and drawings are both sensuous and spiritual, and focused on the female face and form.  

I have studied with many artists at different locations in New York, New Jersey and the Boston area, including the Art Students League and the School of Visual Arts in New York City.

I use a variety of media, including oils, acrylics, watercolors and pen and ink.

My art depicts women in all the variety of their beauty.

Making art for me is an ecstatic experience.  I am swept away by the work and enter into another world.  It is my passion and my purpose.  When I am drawing and painting I feel that I am in the right place in the world for me.  It's almost like I was made to do what I do.

The women in my paintings aren't models generally.  These women come through me without conscious thought on my part.  It is as though I am the brush rather than the artist.  The first time I see the woman coming through is when the painting is complete.  It's as though you've received a box in the mail that you didn't order and as you open the box, it's the first time you see what is inside.  I don't know where they come from.  It's just one more thing about life that I can't explain.

It is my hope that my art will take people back to the Garden of Eden.  We live in a world of horror, cruelty, war and awful things people do to one another.  I want to take people to a place of beauty because I feel that that's what we're really all about.  We're not about all that other stuff.  I want to show people that there's something else.  I want to take people to the place that I go to when I make the art.

George Teshu