Elena Shkvarkina (b. 1988) is a Russian-British multidisciplinary artist who lives and works in London. Her practice expands painting into sound, sculpture, performance, and film. She holds an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art (2025).

Recent exhibitions include Side Sweep (The Gramophone Works, 2025), 17 Points of Departure (Safehouse 2, 2025), Still Flows (RuptureXIBIT, 2025), The Fall of Icarus (Upper Gulbenkian Gallery, 2025). She has also co-curated and exhibited in collaborative projects such as The Brink at Ugly Duck (2023) and Ancestral Utopias at the RCA Hangar Gallery (2025), the largest interdisciplinary exhibition to date for SustainLab society, where she served as co-director. Alongside exhibitions, she organises workshops, talks, and practice exchange events, championing sustainability and cross-disciplinary dialogue.

Her performances, Litany for Ancestral Healing and Windmill, explore the concept of painting with sound, incorporating ritual and movement as pathways for healing collective ancestral memory and reconnecting with nature.

Shkvarkina’s work has been presented across independent art spaces, galleries, and cross-disciplinary platforms, situating painting at the centre of a wider practice of embodied experimentation.

EDUCATION

2025 Royal College of Art (MA Painting)

UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS

2026 selected for Painting – A Changed Environment, Messums West, Tisbury, 17 January – 9 March 2026

PAST EXHIBITIONS

2025 Side Sweep, The Gramophone Works, London, 25–28 September

2025 17 Points of Departure, Safehouse 2, London, 19-21 September

2025 Still Flows, RuptureXIBIT, London, 15-19 July

2025 The Fall of Icarus, Upper Gulbenkian Gallery, London, 7-10 May

2025 Ancestral Utopias, SustainLab (Co-curator & Artist), Hangar Gallery, London, 29 April - 2 May

2024 Pure Land, The Sky Lounge (Co-curator & Artist), Thames City, London, 25 January

2023 The Brink, group exhibition, Tiderip (Co-curator & Artist), Ugly Duck, London, 7-9 October

PERFORMANCES

Litany for Ancestral Healing & Windmill at Side Sweep, The Gramophone Works, 25 September 2025, London

Windmill (Wind Weaving) at Calling in the Last Light, Turf Projects, MHA The Wilderness, 6 September 2025, Croydon

Litany for Ancestral Healing at Still Flows, RuptureXIBIT, 15 - 20 July 2025, Kingston upon Thames

Litany for Ancestral Healing at Painting MA degree show, RCA Battersea Painting building, 19 & 21 June 2025, London

Litany for Ancestral Healing at Ancestral Utopias, SustainLab, RCA Hangar Gallery, 29 April - 1 May 2025, London

Articles & Media

https://www.artzip.org/the-brink

https://www.k2jewelleryacademy.london/blog/nihonga-painting-class-at-k2-academy