Monkey with a watermelon - whimsical oil on canvas painting by Ukrainian artist Alyona Krutogolova featuring a colorful fabulous creature
Monkey with a watermelon - colorful oil on canvas painting by Ukrainian artist Alyona Krutogolova featuring a whimsical fabulous creature
Monkey with a watermelon oil on canvas painting close-up detail by Ukrainian artist Alyona Krutogolova featuring whimsical textured brushwork
Monkey with a watermelon oil on canvas detail showing striped legs and yellow shoes by Ukrainian artist Alyona Krutogolova
Monkey with a watermelon - whimsical oil on canvas painting by Ukrainian artist Alyona Krutogolova featuring a colorful fabulous creature
Monkey with a watermelon - colorful oil on canvas painting by Ukrainian artist Alyona Krutogolova featuring a whimsical fabulous creature
Monkey with a watermelon oil on canvas painting close-up detail by Ukrainian artist Alyona Krutogolova featuring whimsical textured brushwork
Monkey with a watermelon oil on canvas detail showing striped legs and yellow shoes by Ukrainian artist Alyona Krutogolova
Alyona Krutogolova

Monkey with a watermelon

$300.00 Save $-300.00
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"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."

Read more about Alyona

Five minutes of absolute peace of mind and perfect balance — the reason you jumped so high today, galloped around in circles, did cartwheels, pulled off a death-defying somersault and made a great many optimistic, people-loving faces. Life, just as it is.
— Alyona Krutogolova

Technique Dimensions
Oil on canvas 16" H, 12" W
Framing From
Gallery Wrap Kyiv, Ukraine

Original painting · One of a kind

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The artist, the technique, and the story behind Monkey with a watermelon — prepared personally for this specific work.

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Max Khusid, owner of Art House SF

I'm Max Khusid, the gallery owner. I chose every piece here myself and I answer every question personally: framing, size on your wall, shipping, or the story behind the work.

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  • Delivery time: 5-7 days domestic, 3-7 business days international (UPS express)
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  • Returns: 30 days on originals and original prints; made-to-order prints are final

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Alyona Krutogolova has never been trained as an artist. She took a degree at Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University, tried painting classically once, found it uninteresting, and stopped — and says a certain artistic ignorance freed her from a good many constraints.

She began exhibiting in 1999, at the Central Art Exhibition Hall in her native Kryvyi Rih. Then a cat museum on the Costa Brava. Then a charity auction in a Kyiv concert hall in aid of a psychiatric hospital, and the Zuza gallery in Rivne, where the local paper came to the opening. In 2011 she hung at the Dali gallery in Kyiv beside two Georgian painters, and one of Ukraine's leading law firms chose her paintings for its annual calendar. By then some five hundred of her works were in private collections from Norway to South Africa.

Everything she paints lives on the same warm terracotta ground, and has for twenty-five years: pet hedgehogs, dreamy floral cats, wandering sea 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. A young lion's mane bristles with flowers like a florist's window, and bulls carry pots of borscht along the Milky Way. The oil goes on over a built-up textured layer of her own devising, so the surface holds light in a way photographs flatten.

"I have cute, cheerful, decorative works that should bring joy, harmony and positivity to people's homes."

She has painted in Kyiv through the war, often without heat or electricity, and has not changed the subject.

Read more about Alyona — the painter who never trained as one, and the island she built instead.

Alyona Krutogolova portrait

Postcard set

Ten cutest animals by Alyona in one cute package.

Buy Now

"Spirit Animals"

Alyona's first solo exhibit at Art House SF. February 2023

See the Exhibit

Fundraiser for Ukraine

Fundraiser Night for the Ukrainian humanitarian efforts. Over $2,500 raised for a local non-profit specializing in delivery of medical supplies to Ukrainian doctors.

Learn more

Frequently Asked Questions:

Is this artwork original? How is it framed?

Check the "Technique" field above:

Oil, Acrylic, Watercolor, or Fabric — a unique, one-of-a-kind original, delivered to us directly by the artist and framed in California.

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Check the "Framing" field above for this piece.

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Where it's made — Kuriyagawa's and Namiki's frames are made in Japan. Everything else is framed in the United States, from hardwood milled by a third-generation family workshop that supplies exhibition frames to museums.

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Typical cost is $60–$140 via UPS, with delivery in about two weeks. Rates are calculated at checkout. Any duties or import taxes are paid by the customer on delivery. Not sure? Email us for an estimate before you order.

In stock — ships in 1–3 business days. Then 2–3 days to arrive on the West Coast, 5–7 days elsewhere in the US.

Made to order — about two weeks. Fine art prints and giclées are printed for you, so allow 10–14 days before shipping.

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