Nadya Warthen-Gibson was born in the town of Yubileyny, Moscow Oblast, Russia. She immigrated to the United States at the age of 12, along with most of her family, and has lived in a variety of Midwestern states, including Indiana, Iowa and Illinois. During her stay in Illinois, she obtained a Bachelor of Art in Crafts (Metalsmithing and Jewelry) and Master of Art in Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Following college, she resided in the town of Abingdon, Virginia, for five years, becoming inspired by the wild beauty of the Appalachian mountains. Here, she began to paint with encouragement of artists and community members at the Abingdon Arts Depot.

Following a move to Fairfax, VA in 2013 and, more recently, Chesterfield, Nadya continues to work on two and three-dimensional art inspired by both the natural world and the localized, but no less diverse, world of Eastern European folk art. Nadya has had her works at the Link and Cinema galleries in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, Arts Depot gallery, Mallory Fine Art, and Heartwood Artisan Center in Abingdon, and the Cultural Arts Center in Glen Allen, Virginia. She has contributed several times to “Who is Afraid of Virginia's Wolves?,” a public art exhibit in the town of Abingdon as well as illustrating a coloring book as part of that same project and her work has been juried into the Virginia Highlands Arts Show in Abingdon and the Appalachian Art Show at the Renaissance Center in Kingsport, Tennessee.

In 2013 Nadya was unanimously chosen as the signature artist for both the Virginia Highlands Festival held in Abingdon, VA and the Clinch River Days festival held St. Paul, VA.

Having lived her life as somewhat of a transient person and rarely staying in any given location for more than three years, Nadya had learned to hang onto the infrequently stable things in life and has come to possess a keen appreciation, even attachment, to the constant cycles of the sun and the moon, the heritage of recalled and researched folk art tradition, and the ever present avian life around her. These symbols are frequently found in her works, with birds standing in as expressions of such diverse topics as ephemeral beauty, the gregarious nature of immigrants, and the surreal terror of dreams.