Artist
Elena Petrova
Semi-abstract landscapes in oil on canvas, painted in impasto.
Zrenjanin, Serbia
Artist Statement — Elena Petrova
My artistic practice is a search for images of a peaceful and safe life. When my sense of a familiar, stable world was shaken, landscape became a way to reach for the state I longed for: quiet, protection, simplicity and the chance to live without anxiety.
My landscapes grow less from particular places than from the memory of them. It may be a real photograph, a combination of colours or a childhood memory — perhaps of summer holidays at my grandmother’s in the village, when the days felt long, life was simple and the world around was calm and safe.
This is not an attempt to document a particular landscape. Rather, I look in it for evidence that calm places and states still exist.
In my painting I deliberately play down line, contour and exact form, giving priority to shades. Colour becomes the structure and the emotional content of the image rather than an addition to it. Working with a palette knife lets me break down and stylise recognisable form. The impasto texture heightens the materiality of the paint and at the same time lets the image stay between a real landscape and the memory of it, between reality and abstraction.
Artist Bio — Elena Petrova
Elena Petrova is an artist and designer born in the Caucasus, USSR, and living in a small town in Serbia. She holds a degree in design and worked as a graphic designer for more than ten years, teaching painting and pursuing her own artistic practice at the same time.
During this period she worked in a range of painting and graphic techniques and took part in group exhibitions in Samara, Kazan, Orenburg and Yekaterinburg. Since late 2025 she has focused on painting.
Today Elena paints in oil on canvas using the impasto technique. Her work centres on semi-abstract landscapes in which colour, light, texture and the mood of nature matter most. Her paintings combine elements of impressionism, abstraction and realism, turning landscapes into spaces of memory and inner experience.
In recent years one of the central themes of her practice has been the search for a sense of home, peace and safety. In her work, images of nature merge with memories of childhood, of simple everyday life and of places where one can feel protected and free from anxiety.