Milenna Casseb Saraiva was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil. She comes from a family of musicians and artists who have really inspired and motivated her. She’s been drawing and dancing since a really young age. Her days were completely occupied by intensive Olympic Gymnastics and Competition Aerobics training. Milenna was on the national Brazilian team competing all over the country and South America. Her team won (almost) every competition in the ensuing years and on the process Milenna had accumulated many medals, contusions and sketchbooks. After six years competing, she lost her passion for Gymnastics and decided to pursue her academic interests in the arts. When she turned 18 years old she decided moving to Los Angeles to study abroad. The intensive training has given her strength, discipline and persistency, which she considers her best qualities today.

In July of 1998 Milenna took the first drawing class of her life and found true love: ART! “Art is the language of my thoughts. I find it easier to paint than to use words. The lights, the darks, the layers of depth that comes from playing with textures and colors, they all give me a freedom that I cannot find in Portuguese or English. Painting is my quiet way of expressing my heritage and questioning social values. My work has become a tool for me to narrate my life experiences in parables. The paintings I make reflect my personal mythology. I am looking for an opening for the viewer to enter their own thoughts and words, which I create in my mind, while encouraging the projection of one’s own interpretations and dreams onto the ambiguous images I create.”

There is a connection between Milenna’s work and that of the Surrealists, especially in their search for the miraculous in everyday things and situations, together with their nourishment of analogical thinking and the exploration of the unconscious. In Milenna’s latest series called "Psychoactive Renderings" she explores the right side of the brain with acrylic and ink drawings. “Each painting starts with a substance spilled on a paper. After that I close my eyes and randomly draw on it. After that I start looking for things in them, such as animals, monsters, feathers or whatever I see and draw them out as well as filling the negative spaces with almost geometrical lines. After the images are done I name them. They are completely "right brain". It's the first time I create art work and not think about it at all....just let it happen. It is liberating.”

Milenna primarily works with oil paint on canvas and on wood but is constantly experimenting new mediums such as video projections on a painted canvas, drawing, sculpture and some collage.
“I paint from intuition. I paint my dreams, ideals, opinions and frustrations. My paintings have been and will always be an expression of my emotions and a quiet protest about this world we are living in.”