Collages by Yelena Yemchuk at her show “Mnemosyne” at The Naked Room.
“Yemchuk describes herself as a multimedia artist who has long worked with film and photography, and came to painting later. Although she has lived in the United States since the age of eleven, Yelena identifies as a Ukrainian artist, and Mnemosyne marks a significant return: despite exhibiting widely, she has never before had a show in Ukraine.
The project grew out of Yemchuk’s return to Kyiv last August—her first visit in four years, the longest she had been away since leaving as a child. Yelena stopped by The Naked Room, and some time later received an invitation proposing a show that initially focused on documenting that trip and her new series Minerva. As conversations progressed and Yelena began scanning negatives from the 1990s to the early 2000s, the concept expanded to include this unseen material alongside recently created collages from her own archival photographs.”
Images and text courtesy of the artist and gallery.
Booksigning:
YELENA YEMCHUK
MISE EN ABYME
published by @depart_image
For the first time we’ll be in LA, Saturday 28 February at 3:30pm we’ll be at @the_reef_la for @show.l.a together with @yemchuk in the publishers area at the @graficheantiga booth!! See you tomorrow!!
Yelena Yemchuk @yemchuk (b. 1970, Kyiv, Ukraine) is a New York–based visual artist working across photography, film, and painting. Her distinctive practice weaves together past and present, reality and dream, creating timeless, atmospheric narratives that resist fixed categories. Blending reportage and staged imagery with drawing and mixed media, Yemchuk’s work is recognized for its expressive plurality and fluid, cinematic language.
After immigrating to the United States at age eleven, she studied at Parsons School of Design in New York and ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena. Her work has been exhibited internationally and featured in publications including The New Yorker, The New York Times, Vogue, AnOther Magazine, and i-D.
Bookmaking is central to her artistic practice. Her acclaimed photobooks include Gidropark (2011), Anna (2017), Mabel, Betty, & Bette (2021), Odesa (2022), ĐŁYY (2022), and Malanka (2024), published by Edition Patrick Frey.
