About the work…
Art in various forms provided a way to cope during difficult circumstances. Alena’s work emerges colorful, playful and dynamic. It stands in stark contrast to her life experiences and has proven to be transformative and healing. By nature, she is both explorative and analytical. As an artist, she’s drawn to the intersection of chaos and order. There is a fusion between the playful, inner child and the more sophisticated, grounded adult.
Alena’s work is primarily mixed media: oil, acrylics, watercolor, pastel and digital to name a few. Hearkening back to her interior design and drafting days, her creations often incorporate bold, graphic elements, strong compositions, and linework. Bright, saturated colors fill her with happiness. She also delights in shiny surfaces and interesting textures, so metal leaf, gel, glitter, and resin have become integral elements. Each medium has its own personality profile and she useses that to her advantage. There is a science to art, especially mixed media. With each project, Alena consider's which materials, processes and techniques will help capture her vision. Which will play nice together? And in what order? Besides being beautiful, she requires her artwork to be archival and lightfast.
Alena’s process vacillates between two approaches. Sometimes, she likes to go where the adventure leads. Beginning with experimentation and abstraction, she creates and solves a design puzzle, analyzing, and adjusting as she goes. Working through a series of “what ifs? and what nexts?”, the painting eventually reaches an aha! moment, the separate parts integrated, and the work, complete. Finally, she carefully names her new creation. At other times, Alena prefers a clearly defined path, starting with the destination in mind. Grappling with how to bring a concept to fruition, she considers the goal; is to capture a feeling, an idea, or a likeness? She enjoys playing with different styles and employing diversified techniques to materialize these goals, like abstraction, realism, allegory, stylization, geometry and symbolism. Creativity is both challenging and rewarding. It requires learning, practice, effort, patience, deep thought, and humility. The artwork gives rise to gratitude- for the mistakes and frustrations. There are also those glorious moments when it all comes together, and she has made a bit of magic!