Marina Ogai (b. 1993, Maysky, Kabardino-Balkaria, Russia) is a painter working in oil on linen and pencil on paper.

She is Koryo-saram: her ancestors were removed from the Russian Far East in 1937, and her family later settled in the Caucasus. Her grandmother spoke Koryo-mar, a language that has drifted so far from modern Korean that in Seoul it sounds old and other. In Russia, Marina was foreign by her face; in Korea, where she moved as an adult, by her cast of mind – in neither place one of them. She did not choose this subject as an artist; she grew up inside it. In painting she is drawn to the same thing every time: strength beside fragility, impulse beside discipline – opposites that live together without cancelling each other out.

She trained at the children's art school in Maysky (2005–2010), then in painting, drawing and composition at Moscow State University of Design and Technology (2010–2016). More than twelve years as an art director followed, throughout which she never stopped her own practice; that grounding in visual systems and composition continues to shape her painting.

Her method begins with a living archive. Anything that stops the eye goes into it, and every few months she returns to see what repeats. Next to an image she writes: until a thought is put into words it stays a fragile impulse. Her sources are rarely painting itself – film broken into light, pause and rhythm; architecture; an overheard conversation. Every canvas passes one question: would she paint it this way if she knew no one would ever see it?

Work in private collections in the United States, Europe and Australia. She lives in Asia.