Born in 1987 in Ufa. When Nelli was six years old, her parents sent her to a music school where she played the dombra and piano, sang in a choir, and danced. When she was 14, her dombra teacher discovered Nelli’s talents for visual arts and recommended that she continue her studies as an artist.

In 2002, Nelli Akchurina started studying Design at the Ufa Art College. After graduating from the College, she was admitted into the Painting and Drawing department of the Herzen Pedagogical University and next year, in 2008, into the Decorative Textile department of the Stieglitz State Academy. Her thesis project was a series of large-scale tapestries exploring Bashkir national ornaments.

Until 2014, she lived in Saint Petersburg and has since returned to Ufa.

In 2010, Akchurina had her first personal exhibition in Ufa, where her paintings and textile works were shown. In 2011, she started moving towards contemporary art. Since the mid-2010s, she has turned to the performance genre.

Nelli Akchurina’s artistic practice is based around researching identity through the themes of family, ancestry, roots, and all things national.

Lives and works in Ufa.