Vronskaya began her artistic journey studying traditional icon painting techniques from an early age, later attending the Krasnopresnenskaya School of Art and a Fine Art University in Moscow, where she received both her BA and MA. In 1991, she became the first Russian student to receive an MA at the Royal College of Art, with a double major in Painting and Printmaking.

Vronskaya was invited by Sir Anthony Caro to participate in the International Triangle Workshop in New York State, USA. Following this, she played an active role in organizing several Triangle International workshops across Africa, including in Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Botswana.

Her work is held in numerous private collections worldwide, as well as in major public institutions such as Tate Britain, the V&A Museum, the Borchard Collection, Art UK, the Pushkin Museum, and the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. Between 2014 and 2023, she was represented by John Martin Gallery in London, participating in numerous group exhibitions and projects. Her paintings have also been regularly selected for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.

In early 2024, Vronskaya held a large-scale solo exhibition at Messums West. She was also invited to partake in the renowned ‘Small is Beautiful’ group show at Flowers Gallery.

She taught at Rushkin, Winchester and Chelsea Art School and is currently a tutor at Heatherley School of Fine Art where she developed her course How to find your own language through abstraction in painting.

She is a committed and energetic teacher of great integrity, dedicated to the needs and aspiration of each individual pupil. Vronskaya has taught eight courses with Triptych Course to date.

Lucy Threlfall is an artist based in north Hertfordshire. Her work almost entirely takes the form of oil paint on canvas: large gestural landscapes that fuse observations of nature with imagination and memory, as well as portraits made from direct study during live sittings.

Her process starts with drawing. Interpreting the sketches, her painting respond to this foundation through abstraction. Combining observation with imagination, Lucy describes how the natural world speaks about our human condition – the light, the form, the feeling of a place seem to tell us a story about ourselves. Studies from nature become springboards for ideas and figures which take shape through abstraction, emerging spontaneously to create narrative. These figures have come from the world of classical mythology, referencing old master depictions as well as classical texts. Established narratives and archetypes are upended to explore aspects of being in an unconscious way.

Threlfall has exhibited with the Royal Society of Portraits Painters at the Mall Galleries in 2003, at Christie’s in 2005 in the Garrick Milne prize with a portrait of Jimmy Carr. In 2021 she took part in Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year, in which she painted the singer Celeste.

“Whether I’m starting with a person or a place, I will begin with a drawing to help me understand what the subject is and then use the more intriguing or inventive marks to help me frame an eventual painting. The drawing also embeds in the memory, so that back in the studio I can sink into that memory and pull out what interests me and rearrange things to tell the story of that encounter.

I rely heavily on using accidents to show me the way forward and to encourage me to avoid being too literal, while trying to find the interesting places between figuration and abstraction. I will re-paint and over-paint many times in the attempt to solve the puzzle the painting presents, allowing layers of paint to create energy and depth.”