Alyona Krutogolova

Alyona Krutogolova is a contemporary Ukrainian painter based in Kyiv. She works in oil on canvas, building a textured surface layer that is part of a technique of her own — it is what gives the paintings their depth in person, and what photographs never quite catch.

Her language is simplified form, deliberate decorativeness and an ironic view of the world — Ukrainian folk tradition and naive painting pushed somewhere stranger and funnier.

She paints a single warm terracotta world, and populates it: pet hedgehogs, dreamy floral cats, wandering cows, harvest hens and bright-winged owls. A rose blooms on the head of a cheerful hen, a meadow ripens along the flank of a melancholy cow, and a young lion's mane bristles with flowers like a florist's window.

"It is difficult to blame the universe for its imperfection when a pretzel, a cup of tea, or a bouquet of daisies are all balancing on your head at that very moment.

Life is joy (every time we inhale, and especially every time we exhale)!

And that's why we need to live every moment carefully and attentively, just like children when they eat cake, with reverence and while slightly protecting the plate with their hand, because... you never know. :)"

Born in Kryvyi Rih, Alyona has exhibited since 1999 and has lived and worked in Kyiv for years. After the Russian invasion in 2022 she chose to stay. Painting bright, harmonious colour in a city of daily destruction, often without heat or electricity, became her own act of resistance.

Selected Exhibitions:

• 2026 — Art House SF, solo exhibit, "Spirit Animals". San Francisco, USA
• 2025 — Art House SF, solo exhibit, "An Island of Happiness". San Francisco, USA
• 2024 — Art House SF, solo exhibit, "Art Therapy". San Francisco, USA
• 2023 — Art House SF, first US solo exhibit, "Spirit Animals". San Francisco, USA
• 2011 — Dali Gallery, group exhibit, "Around Colour", with Z. and D. Martiashvili. Kyiv, Ukraine
• 2009 — Zuza Gallery, solo exhibit, "Rainbow Colour". Rivne, Ukraine
• 2009 — FreeDom Hall, solo exhibit and charity auction. Kyiv, Ukraine
• 2003 — Casa de los Gatos. Lloret de Mar (Girona), Spain
• 1999 — Central Art Exhibition Hall, "Colours of Autumn". Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine

Press:

• 2025 — Peninsula Press, Stanford Journalism. San Francisco, USA
• 2023 — Bay Area Reporter. San Francisco, USA
• 2009 — Рівне-Ракурс. Rivne, Ukraine

Private Collections:

Her paintings hang in private collections across twenty-six U.S. states and in Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, Australia and Colombia, placed through Art House SF.