Anna Lysak

I trained to paint saints, and chose faces instead.Fine arts at the academy, a craft built booking by booking, two years inside Salamanca’s most exclusive salon,and now my home studio in Madrid where six hundred women have taken the chair.

My Story

From sacred painting to skin

Early editorial makeup by Anna Lysak — graphic liner portrait in golden light

CHAPTER I · 2018

The First Face

My first client was my best friend’s sister. She paid me two dollars. I had no training, no portfolio, no studio — just a few brushes and the kind of confidence only a 17-year-old can have.

I built everything from that face, step by step, while finishing my degree: practicing on everyone I could find, studying obsessively, growing through word of mouth and Instagram — one booking at a time.

Anna at the art academy studying charcoal anatomy drawings, makeup brush and pencils in hand

CHAPTER II · 2019

The Academy

I grew up in Ukraine, and from a young age I knew I wanted to work with my hands. At the art academy I studied sacred art painting — a four-year fine arts degree in classical technique. Human anatomy, studied at the deepest level. Color theory. Composition. How light finds a face.

For two years I trained to paint icons for churches. I loved the craft — but makeup began calling me in a way sacred painting never did. Icon painting asks for a certain lifestyle, a certain devotion, and I respected it too deeply to continue without my full heart. So I made the decision that surprised everyone around me: I chose faces.

I never went to makeup school. I turned four years of anatomy and color theory straight into artistry — and I have kept sharpening it every year since, course after course. In 2022 I held my bachelor’s in sacred art painting, and a portfolio built face by face.

Most artists learn what. Art academy taught me why.

CHAPTER III · 2023–2025

Velázquez

In 2023, Salón Moncho Moreno took me on — one of the most prestigious beauty salons in Madrid, on Calle Velázquez itself, in the heart of the Salamanca district. I stayed two years.

For a self-taught artist from Ukraine whose first booking paid two dollars, walking through that door was the milestone — proof the craft had carried me from nothing to the premium market.

Those two years taught me what the city’s most demanding clients expect, and what it takes to deliver flawlessly, every single time. I learned Madrid’s own taste — its restraint, its idea of elegance — and earned the trust of the Spanish women who still sit in my chair today.

Anna Lysak’s private studio in Madrid — the lit mirror station, her brushes laid out, the client’s chair

CHAPTER IV · TODAY

The Studio

Today I work independently from my private studio in Madrid. Over 600 clients have sat in my chair — brides, executives, creatives; every skin tone from Nordic-pale to black, Indian, Latina, Slavic, Asian. Four languages, and each one opens a different world of women: traveling brides in English, the diaspora in Ukrainian and Russian, Madrid itself in Spanish.

The experience is deliberate. Jazz playing softly — instrumental, never lyrics. Candles lit. Every product visible on the table, every brush impeccable; my studio is kept almost like a clinic, down to disposables for mascara. And I work with a light hand — I will never pull an eyelid or rest my hand on your head. That, to me, is the difference between applying makeup and practicing a craft.

When you leave, you take a small touch-up bag with your lipstick shade and essentials for the evening. And if the morning turns stressful — I’m told I’m the calm in the room.

You’re wearing makeup — and you don’t need to apologize for it.

Quick Facts