Alina Shevchenko was born in 1988 in Riga, Latvia, and currently lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark. Her visual language is influenced by minimalism, geometric abstraction, and concrete art.
How did you get into art?
I have been drawing since I could hold a pencil in my hand, and I started with classical drawing and painting courses as a child. When I was 13 years old, I moved to Denmark with my mom, and my focus shifted away from art to learning a new language and adapting to a new country. Later on, I pursued an education in business and marketing. However, approximately 10 years ago, I began to slowly return to my interest in art and started painting again.
In 2020, I decided to quit my full-time job and enrolled for a year in a private art school called Kunstskolen Spektrum in Copenhagen. I received personal sparring and feedback regarding my artistic practice, had time to experiment and develop my visual language, and expanded my network within the art world, which later on created exhibition possibilities for me.
How would you describe your style? What makes your work special?
My style is non-objective, and I work within an abstract field on paper, canvas, cardboard, and MDF boards. My latest body of work is influenced by minimalism, geometric abstraction, and concrete art. In visual terms, I explore the relationship between different elements in a composition and how they complement each other. It is essential for me to maintain the development of my visual language, and I often reuse or reinvent compositions from my older work.
For instance, by focusing on interesting detail that I translate into new work, I play with different variations of it by changing a color or shape a little bit, or scaling a small drawing into a big painting or a sculpture. I usually work in series of works where I explore a concept or a rule that I invent for my work. This approach gives me a lot of creative freedom within the limitations.
How do you go about developing your work?
I always have so many ideas that I already have an idea bank for future artworks for many years in advance. I see an endless amount of possibilities, so I try to limit myself to work in series and investigate different variations of an idea or a concept.
I see the development of my work as a natural process. I always aim to reinvent my artistic practice by experimenting and repeating my older work, just with a small twist.
Who or what influences you?
I really enjoy and get inspired by looking at art both on Instagram and visiting art shows. Copenhagen has a very interesting art scene, and there are always a lot of shows you can explore.
As I mentioned before, I often use my own work as a reference and find new possibilities of how I can renew my visual language. At the same time, if I spot an interesting way to display or install an artwork or an eye-catching color combination, I would note it down in my art idea bank and probably implement it in my work in the future.
Make us curious. What is planned next?
I'm entering a new chapter of my life: motherhood. I'm very curious myself about how it will influence my artistic practice. In the future, I want to continue to develop my visual language and expand it more to installation and site-specific art.
Instagram
