About Elena

Elena has been drawn to creating art her whole life. After immigrating to Canada from Russia as a teenager, she started high school with very minimal understanding of the English language, and art was something that made her feel like she belonged. Visual Arts, photography and sculpture classes were her safe- haven from confusion, sadness and worry. As a young adult, she ventured down a few different career paths, but ultimately the universe always led her back to creativity and expression through painting. The medium that stole her heart is Encaustic, an ancient art form created using a combination of beeswax and damar resin. Elena marries her inspiration to music and nature. Every painting begins with selecting a playlist that suits the emotional state at that moment and priming of a birch panel. Once the priming stage is completed, Elena often lands on a certain song or a piece of music that feels inspirational, exciting or sometimes just feels good to have it on repeat. She finds that music plays an important role to that state of "flow". Elena's painting style is gestural abstraction, with many layers of wax drips and splatters, some pieces are smooth to touch and some are quite tactile. Elena uses shellac in every piece she creates. The delicate lace-like effect that is achieved by shellac burn technique, reminds her of veining found in natural stone. Elena names each painting after a song or a piece of music that she connected with the most. Her work is intuitive and every piece is discovered organically. Elena's paintings are energetic, ethereal and are rich in visual and tactile expression.  With every layer of wax, pigment and shellac you see texture, depth and luminosity.