biography
Lena Lenda is Dubai based artist who lives and works in UAE since 2013. Born and raised in the small town Kremenchyk, Ukraine, in 1985, she started to paint at the age of 14 and short after took private lessons in fine arts and oil painting from the renowned local artist. After graduation from art school she joined course of History and Theory of Arts in Kiev's National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture (Ukraine) in 2005 and in 2010 Lena successfully had defended her specialist diploma about modern Kiev street art and graffiti language, rising this relatively new and fresh topic in academic circles for the very first time.
Being one of the first female figurants in the Kiev underground graffiti movement by herself, she randomly participated in the decoration productions of the selected video commercials for advertisement and show business. Also being always interested in the luxury and high fashion industry, Lena decided to take a break from the commercial art practices and moved to Dubai in the end of 2012 to pursue career of visual merchandiser in the famous Italian luxury fashion house of Gucci where she worked till the end of 2019 year. Being able to combine knowledge from all mentioned creative roles she decided to come back to the fine art and painting with her first ever Dubai solo exhibition “Gone” in Dubai International Art Centre in February 2020.
phylosophy
Honestly saying as an artist I don't have a specific philosophy. When I paint I do it only because I like the whole process by itself. I like to contemplate nature, objects and flow of being. When I feel that one or another particular thing "disturbs" me enough I start to think about reflecting it somehow. It can be anything: flowers given by my beloved one, bakhoor burner I use every evening, cup of coffee that fascinates me with its perfect shape, just contour or color of things around me. I don’t always put symbolic meaning into my paintings, but often with a flow of work I understand what exactly pushed me into creating it and which symbolical sense and aura glows inside. I "study" esoteric mysticism of everyday life and simple human activities. Spiritualism of reality is the main focus of my work. Odilon Redon once admitted: "I put the Logic of the visible world at the service of the Invisible". Immaterial ideal truth of object's states, this is what deeply intrigues me. At the same time this truth is relatively true, and reality – it’s our own understanding of world, reflection in the mirror, phantom which is existing only for us, reality that is born, lives and dies together with us.
The challenge for me as an artist is to be contemporary in age of digitalism and developing trends of robotic future. Although we all understand that digital is digital and something created on the electronic device exists as long as it's plugged into the network, handcrafted art attracts us probably a little bit less than before. In shape of our iPhone we carry whole Universe in pocket and this is undeniable accomplishment of our times. Still I believe in the magic of primal touch and work with physical materials, when pattern is created not in 2D but 3D, when you feel and smell paint. There is first of all some aromatherapy there, primitive but delighting, like process of making bread. It's very hard to resist to a primal power of life.
Plus to all said perhaps my understanding of contemporary is slightly different from the regular one. For me to be contemporary, first of all, is to be educated and familiar with worldwide cultural and intellectual heritage, to be interested in the past, nowness and often to look into yourself. So one of the most important practices for me is to stay truthful to your inner self. Carl Jung was convinced that our vision will become clear only when we look into our own heart: “Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes." Look inside for all the answers. The kingdom is within.