Artist Bio

Oleksandra Kravchenko was born in Kyiv, Ukraine in 2002. Her first experience as an artist was when she enrolled in Academy of Art in 2008. In this institution she realized that she wanted to pursue a career in this field.

In 2007 she saw Vasily Kandinsky’s exhibition at Pinchuk Art Centre in Kyiv and subsequently changed her specialty to decorative painting which includes bright colours, simplified forms and was influenced by Art Nouveau. She created city posters in order to advertise cities like Lviv, Kyiv, Odessa for tourists. Her paintings were exhibited in Ukraive, Russia, Prague and Japan. She participated in international competition «AVE BOHEMIA» She graduated from Academy of Art in 2019

In 2019 she enrolled in St. Lawrence College where she further expanded knowledge in new mediums. She works primarily in oil and watercolour and she is currently working from Brockville, Canada.

Artist Statement

Art is way of expressing my feelings and I enjoy the process. Moreover, I get sense of pride and satisfaction from finished project. Through the application of my personal experience and vision, I build interconnection with a viewer by allowing seeing my reflective thoughts on social or environmental issues. My goal is change stereotypically believes and show other moments in our lives that should not be taken for granted. In order to achieve it I create painting that is glowing, emotionally charged and realistic.

I prefer to work from life where I draw, paint, and sculpt by observing the objects, models, and scenes that I see firsthand. I have better sensitivity to the nuance of color and I see the elusive, sparkling color in half tones. Moreover, my shadows start to have a sense of light and air in the instead of being dense, opaque blobs. My process begins with a sketch then I use a multilayered method over grisaille. When I work with oil I am reminded that it was used by the old masters long ago, and is still used by professional painters today. I know that piece is finished when it is harmonized and has been worked to a particular level of detail.

A painting is a closed space that dictates its own rules to which I have to adapt in order to catch viewers interest and give someone pause for thought. Every new painting is an opportunity to learn a new technique or brush stroke. I try to be creative and mindful about each project.