Yelena Popova is an artist living and working in Nottingham.
She studied Painting from the Royal College of Art from 2009- 2011 and Set Design and Construction at the Moscow Art Theatre School from 1995-2000.
She works across a range of media including painting, textiles, video and installation. Her works recall the graphics and the aesthetics of Russian Constructivism, Minimalism and Spiritual Abstraction, referenced in her paintings with the use of almost transparent geometric forms. Growing up in a secret Soviet nuclear settlement, Popova often turns her attention to nuclear history and heritage. Through reverberation of modernist aesthetics and the use of own-made paint from foraged natural materials, Popova questions the quest for continuous industrial development and the landscape of contemporary capitalism.
Select solo exhibitions include: From Dust to Breath, Ione and Mann, (London, 2024), Made Ground, Cample Line (Scotland, 2022), Showing Now, Touring Later, The Art House, Worcester University (2021), Landscapes of Power, Philipp von Rosen Galerie (Cologne, 2020), The Scholar Stones Project, Holden Gallery, MMU (Manchester 2020), Her Name is Prometheus, L’etrangère, (London, 2018), Elements, Girton College, University of Cambridge, This Certifies That, Philip von Rosen Galerie (Cologne, 2017), After Image, Nottingham Contemporary (2016).
Recent group exhibitions include: Material Worlds, Hayward touring curated by Caroline Achaintre (2024), Matter as Actor, curated by Greg Hilty, Lisson Gallery (London, 2023), Slow Painting, curated by Martin Herbert for Hayward Touring (2019), Perpetual Uncertainty, curated by Ele Carpenter at Malmö Konstmuseum (Malmö, 2017), Future Light curated by Maria Lind for Vienna Biennale (Vienna, 2015).
Her work is included in Vitamin P3 (The 108 International Artists Revolutionizing Painting Today), published by Phaidon Press (2016) and Thames and Hudson’s 100 Painters of Tomorrow (2014).
Collections include: Arts Council Collection, Government Art Collection, The Women’s Art Collection, Nottingham Castle collection, RCA Collection, Saatchi ColÂlecÂtion, Zabludowicz Collection, and LWL Museum, Münster.
