Since she was a young child, the Ukrainian painter Ganna Kryvolap has been shaped by the creative environment revolving around her family. She comes from a family of artists. Her father Anatoliy Kryvolap, who was famous for his Ukrainian landscape paintings, as well as her mother Zinayida Vasina, also an artist and theatre costume designer, both had a great impact on Ganna Kryvolap. Her works are characterised by brilliant colours, expressionist structure and vibrating energy. They radiate lightness and an incredible luminous intensity. The artist works in series and cycles. She transforms her city series into an abstract and dreamlike language: Kryvolap’s pictures are hybrids that incorporate impressions of real landscapes, intellectual observations and pure fantasy. She contrasts her multi-coloured urban pictures with a colour background that additionally introduces a strong dynamic element.

In a world governed by rules—both written and unspoken—Darina Smolkina’s art whispers of quiet rebellion. Born in Kyiv, Ukraine, now based in Lisbon, she crafts paintings that feel like echoes of a theatrical performance, where characters linger in a suspended moment, caught between societal expectations and personal truths. Her work is a stage, and every canvas is a scene unfolding. Darina’s journey began in a traditional family, where expectations were clear—but her fascination with the surreal led her beyond the familiar. She started art school at six, mastering techniques that shaped her unique visual language. While studying graphic design in Kyiv, Darina found her true voice in painting — a space where boundaries blurred and deeper narratives emerged. At 19, she moved to Lisbon, an experience that shaped her perspective as an outsider navigating an unfamiliar world. Her art became a reflection of identity, isolation, and the quiet weight of societal expectations. From Schönhausen Palace Museum in Berlin to New York’s 17frost Gallery, her work speaks to a universal struggle — the tension between conformity and self-expression. Whether in the dreamlike haze of New Dream World or the raw intimacy of My First Diary, Darina’s paintings invite viewers to step into a moment of self-reflection, where emotions take form and meaning unfolds. Darina doesn’t just paint figures — she paints questions. Her art asks: Who are we, beyond the expectations placed upon us? What do we reveal, and what do we conceal? Her world is one where the symbolic and the surreal merge, reflecting not just her own journey, but the collective search for meaning in a world full of invisible walls.

Natasha Brichuk, known as Notuko, paints in the language of memory. Raised in Rivne, Ukraine, she grew up surrounded by the vivid patterns of embroidered tablecloths, the warmth of painted ceramics, and the quiet grandeur of old Ukrainian architecture. These objects weren’t just decoration—they were stories, passed down through generations, whispering of heritage, resilience, and identity. But tradition, as she saw it, was not static. It pulsed with life, adapting, shifting, existing between past and present. It is this in-between space that Notuko inhabits as an artist. She pursued decorative and applied arts, specialising in ceramics, but painting became her true medium for storytelling. What began as a simple fascination evolved into a bold artistic language - where folk motifs meet abstraction, where Byzantine echoes intertwine with modern fluidity. Her figures emerge as symbols rather than individuals, their forms at times dissolving into textured layers of colour, as if caught between reality and memory. Improvisation is at the heart of her process. She embraces instinct, letting her brushwork capture fleeting emotions and intangible histories. Her compositions often feel like fragments of a grander, unseen whole — inviting viewers to reconnect with traditions, not as relics, but as living, breathing experiences. Notuko’s works have traveled far beyond her hometown, exhibited across Ukraine, Europe, and the UK. Yet, her essence remains rooted in the stories of home — the unspoken ties between past generations and those still to come. Her art is a conversation between centuries, a delicate balance of structure and spontaneity, of inherited symbols and contemporary expression. To experience Notuko’s work is to step into a world where tradition doesn’t belong to the past—it evolves, just like us.