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Dombrovska Olena
Discover the artist and the works through the video at the link.
The project consists of a series of paintings and texts created based on archival photographs. These belong to a specific historical period and have inhuman content. Visually, the canvases are not realistic copies of the photographs but resemble more of a foggy trace. As a method, the artist uses colored lines, blurring the narrative and transforming it into an abstract structure. The meanings of the photographs dissolve, leaving behind only unrecognizable outlines of tragic events. She reflects on the images and distances herself from assessing the historical and political context. The paintings are freed from the visual burden, humiliation, and injustice toward others; it is only through the texts that one can understand what we are truly looking at. In both the texts and paintings, you will not find anyone to blame, and there are no time frames. The only figure present is the human being. The viewer is free to see what resonates with their own experience and emotions.
Olena Dombrovska (b. 1985, Odesa) is a Ukrainian artist and co-founder of the artistic organization KNO | Kyiv Non Objective. She works across painting, drawing, installation, and object-based art. Her practice explores the interplay of line and light, abstract forms as emotional images, and the ways collective memory and history shape the perception of art.
She studied at the Grekov Odesa Art School (2002–2007) and graduated from the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture in Kyiv (2009–2014), specializing in monumental painting. Since 2009, she has participated in exhibitions and projects in Ukraine and abroad.
Her works have been presented internationally — from the Institute of Contemporary Art (MECA, Portland, USA) to galleries in Paris, Benevento, Melbourne, Cincinnati, and Ontario. In Ukraine, she took part in Kyiv Art Week, the Festival of Young Ukrainian Artists at Mystetskyi Arsenal, as well as projects at M17, Lavra Gallery, ILKO, Dzyga, and Voloshyn Gallery.
Selected solo shows include “Myth” (Markoff Gallery, Odesa, 2012), “Before the Image” (Invogue#Art, Odesa, 2018), and “Spectacles” (Lavra Gallery, Kyiv, 2021). In 2023, Dombrovska’s works were featured in the international exhibition “The Clouds Will Dissolve” at Villa Böhm (Germany), reflecting on Ukrainian women artists’ experiences during wartime.
Through her projects, she reinterprets archival photographs and transforms them into abstract structures, dissolving narratives into traces and silhouettes. Her art invites viewers to confront memory and trauma while leaving space for individual perception and imagination.
She currently lives and works in Kyiv.
Artworks Dombrovska Olena
