Irina aka Rainbow Peacock or Irina Nola was born in St.Petersburg, Russia, and was a tour-guide for English-speaking students and an actress of English Theatre in high school. She studied psychology in St.Petersburg State University, and was a practicing psychologist till she moved to USA in 1990. She got a job as an artist/silk-screen apprentice in famous NYC T-Shirt Gallery on Lexington Ave. and was making custom T-shirts. Her boss Markku Aunio aka Finn introduced her to NYC art-scene and body-painting, and set her up in a local bar for Halloween 1992 to paint faces. Next summer she started painting faces in Central Park near the Zoo, and eventually became a full time face-painter. She came to New Orleans for the first time in 1993 in september, painted a couple of street performers on Bourbon street and had a heat stroke...so next time she showed up in NOLA in 1995 in November and worked whole winter on Jackson Square - much better weather! She was coming to New Orleans every Mardi Gras ever since and relocated in 2001. Nowadays Irina works in New Orleans october-june, and travels to festivals on the West Coast, New England, Canada and Europe during hurricane season. She also worked as a street performer in Paris, Barcelona, Galway and Amsterdam, and partnered with European models and photographers for body-painting photo-shoots.
Here are some street performing pictures of Irina.