Lena Panaita is an artist and storyteller, who at the moment is working on her graphic novel “Upgraded Gods”, a game “Timedistillery” and other projects for her favorite clients. Lena resides in beautiful New Zealand working from her studio in Auckland. 

She started her career in traditional media, mainly oil painting, then moved to digital painting and illustration. Recently she made another move into virtual reality (VR), where she is illustrating and animating her graphic novel in Oculus Quill. 

She received a traditional art education in Russia that in total combines about 15 years of study in Art School, Art College and Art University. Later moving to New Zealand she received her Masters in Art & Design (with Hons) from AUT University, New Zealand. She was awarded the Vice Chancellor's Doctoral Scholarship that allowed her to commit to PhD research, looking into how a storyteller might employ VR in the creation of an immersive narrative that communicates an experience of both conscious and atypical consciousness (near-death experience).