ART BY
ELENA KUZENKO
BIOGRAPHY
Elena Kuzenko is a Ukrainian contemporary painter based in Odesa, working primarily in oil on linen canvas. Combining expressive figurative realism with symbolism, she explores vulnerability, memory, moral responsibility, love and inner balance. Living and working in wartime Ukraine has deepened her engagement with human dignity, hope and the bonds that sustain us through uncertainty.
Her practice draws on more than twenty years of painting, including portraiture, landscapes, seascapes and studies after the Old Masters. Through layered oil painting and transparent glazes, she creates luminous colour and atmospheric depth. Her artistic development includes studies Art School and continuing education with New Zealand painter Richard Robinson in 2022 and 2024. She also holds a university degree in Germanic philology, specialising in English, from Odesa I. I. Mechnikov National University.
In 2026, Kuzenko received the Excellence Prize and a cash award for Passion and Cocoon of Safety at Golden Duck Gallery’s international exhibition NO LIMITS: ART OF FREEDOM in Budapest. She was shortlisted for VAA Art100 International and longlisted for the Visual Artists Association’s Artist of the Year Awards. Her other distinctions include winner awards at the XX and XXI International Art Festivals PAINT.UA / MALUY.UA, two Finalist Awards from CEV Art Gallery for The Guide and The Night Visitor, and an Honorable Mention in TERAVARNA’s 14th ANIMAL International Juried Art Competition.
Her paintings have been exhibited at Golden Duck Gallery in Budapest and BBArtGallery in Odesa. Reproductions of The Candle of Hope and Prayer Among the Ruins were presented in Barcelona’s Plaça del Virrei Amat during the XII Ucrania Fest, as part of Generations of War: The Fifth Year. Her work has also appeared in the Generations of War public exhibition programme in Kyiv.
Her international online exhibitions include Wings, Birds and Flight at No. 35 Gallery, Chromatic and Animal Kingdom at CEV Art Gallery, and Under the Surface at Clover Gallery. Selected works have been presented digitally at VivaTech in Paris through ArtMajeur and in ArtSeen’s West Coast Screen Series in the United States.
Kuzenko’s work and artist features have appeared in Divide Magazine, Visual Art Journal and Arty Rat. The Silence of the Fading Day was featured online in Culturale Lab’s The World Art Collection and selected for its forthcoming book. She was also selected for a two-page feature in the forthcoming Big Book of Painters 2026 by Arts To Hearts Project. Her professional engagements include a presentation at the Ukrainian Woman Cultural Cooperation Community’s Cultural Cooperation Days.
Across her work, light becomes a symbol of emotional resilience. Her paintings invite viewers to reflect on compassion, personal responsibility and our need for one another.
Elena Kuzenko is a Ukrainian contemporary painter based in Odesa, working primarily in oil on linen canvas. Combining expressive figurative realism with symbolism, she explores vulnerability, memory, moral responsibility, love and inner balance. Living and working in wartime Ukraine has deepened her engagement with human dignity, hope and the bonds that sustain us through uncertainty. Her practice draws on more than twenty years of painting, including portraiture, landscapes, seascapes and studies after the Old Masters. Through layered oil painting and transparent glazes, she creates luminous colour and atmospheric depth.
Her artistic development includes studies Art School and continuing education with New Zealand painter Richard Robinson in 2022 and 2024. She also holds a university degree in Germanic philology, specialising in English, from Odesa I. I. Mechnikov National University.
In 2026,Kuzenko received the Excellence Prize and a cash award for Passion and Cocoon of Safety at Golden Duck Gallery’s international exhibition NO LIMITS: ART OF FREEDOM in Budapest.
She was shortlisted for VAA Art100 International and longlisted for the Visual Artists Association’s Artist of the Year Awards.
Her other distinctions include winner awards at the XX and XXI International Art Festivals PAINT.UA / MALUY.UA, two Finalist Awards from CEV Art Gallery for The Guide and The Night Visitor, and an Honorable Mention in TERAVARNA’s 14th ANIMAL International Juried Art Competition.
Her paintings have been exhibited at Golden Duck Gallery in Budapest and BBArtGallery in Odesa.
Reproductions of The Candle of Hope and Prayer Among the Ruins were presented in Barcelona’s Plaça del Virrei Amat during the XII Ucrania Fest, as part of Generations of War: The Fifth Year.
Her work has also appeared in the Generations of War public exhibition programme in Kyiv.
Her international online exhibitions include Wings, Birds and Flight at No. 35 Gallery, Chromatic and Animal Kingdom at CEV Art Gallery, and Under the Surface at Clover Gallery.
Selected works have been presented digitally at VivaTech in Paris through ArtMajeur and in ArtSeen’s West Coast Screen Series in the United States.
Kuzenko’s work and artist features have appeared in Divide Magazine, Visual Art Journal and Arty Rat. The Silence of the Fading Day was featured online in Culturale Lab’s The World Art Collection and selected for its forthcoming book.
She was also selected for a two-page feature in the forthcoming Big Book of Painters 2026 by Arts To Hearts Project. Her professional engagements include a presentation at the Ukrainian Woman Cultural Cooperation Community’s Cultural Cooperation Days. Across her work, light becomes a symbol of emotional resilience. Her paintings invite viewers to reflect on compassion, personal responsibility and our need for one another.