Artist statement
My work focuses on exploring identity, heritage, trauma, and transformation through figurative oil and acrylic paintings. Drawing on personal experiences and collective symbols, I examine the complex interplay between the past and present, the individual and the collective. Recurring motifs in my work include elements of Ukrainian culture—ritual symbols, textiles, and folk patterns—that serve as vessels of memory, resilience, and the weight of inherited experiences.
Through layered compositions, muted and vibrant contrasts, and bodies in states of flux, I seek to express how identity is shaped by both visible and invisible forces—trauma passed down through blood and story, but also the potential for healing and metamorphosis.
Bio
Olesia Tverdokhlib, born in 2001 in Kyiv, Ukraine, is a contemporary painter based in Mannheim, Germany.
Tverdokhlib has exhibited at L’image de la femme : aux racines de la paix (group exhibition) at Maison de l’Europe de Paris, and Le pouvoir de l’énergie féminine: La Renaissance (group exhibition) at Halle aux Blancs Manteaux, both organized by VIDKRYTA ARKA in 2025, Paris. Other notable exhibitions include The Bird of the Soul (2025, Karlsruhe, Germany) and O.S.D.1 (2024, Warsaw, Poland).
Her work was featured in Visual Art Journal, Issue 17. She was a participant at the Luxembourg Art Prize 2024, and her work “A Legacy of Survival” was longlisted for Jackson’s Art Prize 2025.