Mila Bakhirev (MiLAB)

Mila Bakhirev is a Russian born artist and a scientist who lives and works in New Mexico. Mila’s interest in art developed in high school when she chose rigorous art history curricula. While studying anatomy in medical school, Mila became fascinated by the art and science of medical illustration and found that doing her own drawings helped her to visualize and better understand subtle details and complex relationship between systems and structures. Mila signs her artwork with an acronym MiLAB – a reference to her science background and a successful career as a medical educator (she is a Professor at the University of New Mexico).

She is a member of the New Mexico Art League (NMAL) and the Rio Grande Art Association (RGAA), and has studied watercolor and oil painting with established artists from Europe (Elena Groubar) and New Mexico (Maria Cole, Carol Carpenter, J. Waid Griffin, and Albert Handell). Her paintings in oil are in private collections in Utah and New Mexico. Mila’s paintings have been selected for multiple juried exhibitions in New Mexico, including “True Likeness”, “Flower as Still-life”, “Biologique”, “The Art of the Flower”, “Lay of the Land” at NMAL, and Encantada show in 2019.

Mila particularly enjoys working with a palette knife instead of brushes, which results in a looser, textured style, and creates a dimensional effect. Many of Mila’s art pieces are inspired by the New Mexico unique landscape and create a feeling of connection to nature and a sense of serenity, harmony, and piece. She also enjoys enjoy doing portraits in the alla prima style (in one setting or wet-on-wet) for its vivid expressiveness and capturing New Mexico magnificent light and nature en plein air.