Yelena Popova

Yelena Popova (b. 1978, Urals, USSR) is an artist living and working in Nottingham.

She is a graduate of the Royal College of Art in London (RCA, MA in Painting, 2009- 2011) and the Moscow Art Theatre School (MHAT, Set Design and Construction, 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: 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: 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). Popova was part of IONE & MANN’s Inaugural exhibition in 2016.

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 Col­lec­tion, Zabludowicz Collection, and LWL Museum, Münster.

SOLO EXHIBITION: Of Dust and Breath~ September - November 2024

SELECTED WORKS