About

Arkady Roytman was born in a little town called Beltsy, in the former Soviet republic of Moldova. As a kid he would retell Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen folktales verbatim to anyone who would listen. He immigrated to the United States as a religious refugee with his family at the age of 9. During the process of immigration he spent a few months in Austria and Italy where he learned about his Jewish roots, and further fueled his imagination by the stories from the Old Testament. In the United States, Saturday morning cartoons and comic-books influenced his early artistic exploits. While attending the Savannah College of Art and Design for Sequential Art he expanded into the field of Illustration and later, Fine Art.

While Arkady still maintains his commercial illustration practice, regularly creating coloring books for Dover Publications and illustrated maps for Travel Graphics International, he’s decided to focus more on his first artistic love: Portraiture.

Arkady currently resides in Bloomington, Indiana with his wife and young daughter.