Artist Alena Kovalli was born in 1988 in St. Petersburg. She was educated at the State Academy of Arts, now is currently a student at the Joseph Backstein Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA Moscow).

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In her practice, the artist explores the inner experiences of a person during a period of global upheaval. The formal nature of her works, while maintaining a certain inclination towards abstraction and decorativeness, nevertheless changes significantly along with their content, which in turn responds to events in the outside world.

 

Fictional, alien, but still figurative landscapes, reflecting the idea of escapism in the Terra Incognita series, are replaced by completely abstract, but inspired by real visual impressions, allowing one to turn to specific (common to the artist’s generation) childhood memories, canvases in Nomades.

 

A series of works by Nomades reflects a situation when the usual reality is collapsing before our eyes and instead of the desire for escapism, there is a need to again find one’s place in the world, both external and internal, through nomadism.