Idealisation. The figures created by Swiss artist Olena Linse do not look – they simply are. And they convey dignity, strength and quiet self-assertion.
Born in 1978 in Dubno, a city in western Ukraine that gained literary fame through Nikolai Gogol's novel ‘Taras Bulba’, the artist grew up under her birth name Olena Bratiychuk in a multicultural environment – shaped by Russian, Ukrainian and Jewish influences.
At the age of fourteen, she began taking painting classes at the art school in her hometown and received private lessons from Professor Mikola Volocuk. Between 1995 and 2001, Olena studied at the Technical University of Rivne and graduated with a degree in urban planning.
However, she soon switched to her true calling and has been working as a freelance artist since 2004. In 1998, when Olena Linse was celebrating her twentieth birthday, her Ukrainian hometown of Dubno presented the first exhibition of the up-and-coming artist.
She established contacts with galleries in Austria and Germany. After spending time in Germany and Austria, she married in 2010 and now lives and works under the name Olena Linse in Switzerland, where she has since become a citizen.
Since then, her career has progressed rapidly. She has exhibited her art in Zurich, Basel, Vienna, Mannheim, Hamburg, Paris and New York. Her colourful portraits, nudes and abstract impressions can be found in private collections in Ukraine, Austria, Germany and Switzerland.
A decisive step in her career came in 2015 with the collaboration Olena Linse's collaboration with Hamburg gallery owner Nour Nouri, founder and owner of Pashmin Art Consortia. Olena Linse's focus on female self-confidence and self-assurance is a strong point in her thinking and philosophy. Pashmin Art Consortia exhibits her art in various galleries and museums around the world, and over the years she has become internationally renowned as a Swiss artist. The established art appraisal firm MIR Appraisal in Chicago (USA) has assessed her works and certified her very personal art style as unique worldwide.
In June of this year, her book of the same name, featuring contributions from international art critics, was presented at the ‘Labyrinth’ exhibition in Hamburg. It describes Olena Linse as a border crosser between antiquity and the present, between form and feeling. Her art thrives on dialogue. with the viewer – without imposing itself. Despite all their dynamism and energy, the works radiate a remarkable degree of calm and serenity.
The artist herself says of her creative process: ‘I don't work with models, but I see faces, hear stories from friends and acquaintances, and use them in my portraits. Often, a symbiosis emerges from what I hear, my own life experiences, my feelings and my imagination. My pictures first take their final form in my head.’
