Olena Hnatiuk

Olena Hnatiuk (b. 1995, Kherson, Ukraine) is a Sweden-based artist working primarily with expressive figuration and symbolic visual language. Her practice explores themes of loneliness, memory and the fragile boundaries between inner experience and external reality. Through layered textures, abstracted forms and emotionally charged colour, Hnatiuk creates introspective scenes in which the human presence appears vulnerable, shifting and unresolved.

Her paintings often depict figures that dissolve into their surroundings or appear fragmented and unstable, balancing between presence and disappearance. This visual ambiguity reflects psychological transitions and uncertainties that shape human experience. Combining expressive figuration with symbolic elements and deliberate deformation, Hnatiuk articulates emotional tension and vulnerability, allowing gesture, form and material to carry psychological weight.

Recurring motifs such as hands, vessels, circles and ritual-like objects function as metaphors for memory, healing and the fragile structure of the self. Domestic interiors, tables and still life arrangements operate as thresholds—spaces that feel familiar yet subtly disquieting—inviting the viewer to encounter their own inner states. Rather than offering fixed answers, Hnatiuk’s work poses visual questions that unfold through colour, movement and texture.

Hnatiuk holds a Master’s degree in Graphic Design and has exhibited in Sweden, Estonia and Ukraine, including solo exhibitions in Tartu and Kherson. In 2024, she was awarded the Pärlhönan Grant and is actively engaged in the contemporary Swedish art scene.