Yelena Popova, RCA Installation, Mixed media. Photo: Yelena Popova
Yelena Popova
Resident Artist
STUDIO B6
Yelena Popova
Yelena is a Russian born artist, now living and working in Nottingham. She studied at Moscow Art Theatre School and Byam Shaw at Central St Martins before graduating from MA Painting at the Royal College of Art in July 2011. Recent group exhibitions include Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2011, Sheffield & London (2011) and New Sensations, London (2011). Yelena was recently awarded the Red Mansion Art Prize and residency in China (Sept 2011). Yelena works across a range of media incorporating painting, video, text and installation. She describes herself as a devoted Martian Gardener, a cuddly Ninja Mickey Mouse, an inventive vodka-meister, an occasional zine-maker and a successor of both Russian constructivists (Lubov Popova) and western Pop culture. ’My work is rooted in making and the issues of materiality and matter are central to my practice. However, the discursive, performative and documentary aspects allow my work to stay open and engage with different audiences’. Yelena also occasionally acts as a curator, to create a wider context for her work and collaborate with other people.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2010/11
‘Unnamed’, Wallner Gallery, Lakeside Arts Centre, Nottingham
‘Josto Flowers’, 40 Kvadratov Gallery, Smolensk, Russia, curator by Dmitry Zimin
‘Martian Gardener’, Hand & Heart Gallery, Nottingham
‘Clamour’, Farnham Maltings, Farnham, Surrey
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
New Sensations, 2011, Victoria House, London
Bloomberg New Contemporaries, at S1 Artspace and Site Gallery, Sheffield; and ICA, London RCA MA Show 2011, Battersea, London
‘The Bookmark Project’ The Study at Nottingham Contemporary, curated by Yelena Popova
‘Never Let Me Go’, Project space, Quad, Derby
‘E=MC2’ at The Toilet Gallery, Kingston, London, curated by Kate Renwick
‘Keep Doors & Passages Clear’, White Columns Gallery, New York, curated by Tom Godfrey
‘Tracing Shadows in the Dark’, Blyth Gallery, Imperial College, London, curator Yelena Popova
