Chemiakin was born in 1943 in Moscow and has achieved worldwide prominence during the past 20 years in the west, making two emigrations from his finally, settled in new York, where he now resides. Chemiakin's interest in art developed at a young age. After his father's move to Leningrad, he began to have difficulty with the Russian art school's strict administrators and was expelled from the academy and barred from study at any art school in the Soviet Union. To continue his studies, he spent time researching the Old Masters at his job in the State Hermitage Museum. His ideas formulated and he became a new voice in art, insisting that there must be new ways to depict the surreal life of contemporary Russia. He was soon persecuted for his beliefs and put into an insane asylum for treatment. Upon his release, he began to learn and appreciate the Russian icon and its beauty, making a new beginning for his art. Chemiakin's works have pictorial references to folklore colors, metaphysical and surrealist uses of space and rich ornament from Russian culture.