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![Peonies]( "Peonies")
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![Untitled]( "Untitled")
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![Spirit]( "Spirit")
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![Trace]( "Trace")
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![at night]( "at night")
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![Smile]( "Smile")
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![Tierra de Siena Tostada]( "Tierra de Siena Tostada")
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![Calmness]( "Calmness")
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![Untitled]( "Untitled")
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The project 'grin and bear it' delves into exploring the connection between smiling and sadness. The study references Carney Landis research on smiles, highlighting that not all smiles convey happiness. With special thanks to Masha Gu, Yaroslava Kolomiets, Fleur Beloenss, Lisette Bank. Project supported by foundation B.a.d Special thanks for the organisation to Karin Arink, Anique Weve, Carolin Lange, Sandra Nibbeling, Maurice Meewisse, Jeroen Jongeleen, Marco Douma and Joke Olthaar.
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![Grin and bear it]( "Grin and bear it")
infoThe project ‘grin and bear it’ delves into exploring the connection between smiling and sadness. The study references Carney Landis research on smiles, highlighting that not all smiles convey happiness. Video interviews brings visual expressions to the surface as well as multiple meanings of “the same” depending on the distinction of being, as well as outlining the complexity of understanding facial features.
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![Grin and bear it]( "Grin and bear it")
infoThe project ‘grin and bear it’ delves into exploring the connection between smiling and sadness. The study references Carney Landis research on smiles, highlighting that not all smiles convey happiness. Video interviews brings visual expressions to the surface as well as multiple meanings of “the same” depending on the distinction of being, as well as outlining the complexity of understanding facial features.
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![Grin and bear it]( "Grin and bear it")
infoThe project ‘grin and bear it’ delves into exploring the connection between smiling and sadness. The study references Carney Landis research on smiles, highlighting that not all smiles convey happiness. Video interviews brings visual expressions to the surface as well as multiple meanings of “the same” depending on the distinction of being, as well as outlining the complexity of understanding facial features.
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![Way]( "Way")
infoHow we imagine our path and how it actually unfolds
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![Vol]( "Vol")
infoVolume of feelings
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![Birds]( "Birds")
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![Yin and Yang]( "Yin and Yang")
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![Happiness]( "Happiness")
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![Sorrow and sun]( "Sorrow and sun")
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![Kigsday's crowd]( "Kigsday's crowd")
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![ENERGY]( "ENERGY")
infoDuring Art Rotterdam in Ahoy, Foundation B.a.d (ten minutes away from Ahoy) shows the group exhibition ϟ ENERGY ϟ, with works by both members (those living and/or working in B.a.d) as well as guest artists. Our location, Talingstraat 5, is a beautiful school building designed between 1953-1955. In and around this building, the artists of ϟ ENERGY ϟ show their works. Photography, sculptures, paintings, and installations in situ.
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![ENERGY exhibition]( "ENERGY exhibition")
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![ENERGY exhibition]( "ENERGY exhibition")
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![ENERGY exhibition]( "ENERGY exhibition")
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![Grin and bear it]( "Grin and bear it")
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![Grin and bear it]( "Grin and bear it")
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![When tomato becomes a piece of cake]( "When tomato becomes a piece of cake")
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![I Don’t Think I’ll Stay Here Long 2023]( "I Don’t Think I’ll Stay Here Long 2023")
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![I Don’t Think I’ll Stay Here Long 2023]( "I Don’t Think I’ll Stay Here Long 2023")
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![When tomato becomes a piece of cake]( "When tomato becomes a piece of cake")
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![When Tomato Becomes a Piece of Cake]( "When Tomato Becomes a Piece of Cake")
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![When Tomato Becomes a Piece of Cake]( "When Tomato Becomes a Piece of Cake")
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![When Tomato Becomes a Piece of Cake]( "When Tomato Becomes a Piece of Cake")
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![When Tomato Becomes a Piece of Cake]( "When Tomato Becomes a Piece of Cake")
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![When tomato becomes a piece of cake]( "When tomato becomes a piece of cake")
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I don't think I'll stay here long tells the stories of women who fled Ukraine due to the Russian invasion in February 2022 and are currently hosted by families across the Netherlands. In a three-channel installation, actress Ewa Kruttova performs a series of monologues on behalf of these women, detailing their efforts to find common ground and learn how to live alongside strangers in spite of their cultural differences. The project brings together complex narratives about loneliness and togetherness; kindness and cultural clichés; humour and sorrow; but also the hope to call a place home again. I don't think I'll stay here long is a collaboration between actress and performance art-ist Ewa Kruttova who arrived in the Netherlands from Ukraine in March 2022, and lens-based artist Jana Romanova who came to the Netherlands from Russia in 2019.
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![I Don’t Think I’ll Stay Here Long]( "I Don’t Think I’ll Stay Here Long")
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![I Don’t Think I’ll Stay Here Long]( "I Don’t Think I’ll Stay Here Long")
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![Down There in the Cherry Garden]( "Down There in the Cherry Garden")
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![Weawing with Words. Fragments of Fragile Conversations]( "Weawing with Words. Fragments of Fragile Conversations")
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![Down There in the Cherry Garden]( "Down There in the Cherry Garden")
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![Down There in the Cherry Garden]( "Down There in the Cherry Garden")
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![I Don’t Think I’ll Stay Here Long]( "I Don’t Think I’ll Stay Here Long")
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![Down There in the Cherry Garden]( "Down There in the Cherry Garden")
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Social media
Curriculum vitae
Education
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Self-taught
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2010 - 2015Sociology National Technical University Kharkiv Politechnic Institute diploma
exhibitions
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2025ENERGY foundation B.a.d Rotterdam, Netherlands During Art Rotterdam in Ahoy, Foundation B.a.d (ten minutes away from Ahoy) shows the group exhibition ϟ ENERGY ϟ, with works by both members (those living and/or working in B.a.d) as well as guest artists. Our location, Talingstraat 5, is a beautiful school building designed between 1953-1955. In and around this building, the artists of ϟ ENERGY ϟ show their works. Photography, sculptures, paintings, and installations in situ. www.foundationbad.nl/ϟ-energy-ϟ/ Group
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2025Grin and bear it foundation B.a.d Rotterdam, Netherlands The project ‘grin and bear it’ delves into exploring the connection between smiling and sadness. The study references Carney Landis research on smiles, highlighting that not all smiles convey happiness. Video interviews brings visual expressions to the surface as well as multiple meanings of “the same” depending on the distinction of being, as well as outlining the complexity of understanding facial features. www.foundationbad.nl/grin-and-bear-it/ Duo
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2024Barcelona Indi Film Festival Barcelona, Spain Short film WHEN TOMETO BECOMES A PIECE OF CAKE www.madriff.org/barciff/ Group
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2023Larnaca Biennale EVOHK gallery Larnaca, Cyprus Short Film and Q&A Yaroslava Krutova Ukraine, 1993 WHEN TOMATO BECOMES A PIECE OF CAKE Video biennalelarnaca.com/event/homeawayfromhome-screenings/ Group
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2023The Grand Palace of Everyone NEST The Haage, Netherlands I don't think I'll stay here long nestruimte.nl/exhibition/the-grand-palace-of-everyone/ Duo
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2022I don't think I'll stay here long Saxyland, Unseen Amsterdam, Netherlands I don't think I'll stay here long unseenamsterdam.com/city-program Duo
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2022Down There in the Cherry Garden Perdu Amsterdam, Netherlands Ewa’s performance was presented in Ukrainian together with her translator Sergej, accompanied by her paintings with a corresponding sound composition. perdu.nl/nl/r/on-what-binds-us-together/ Duo
Projects
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2026
Traces of Becoming The Hague, Netherlands Working with abstraction, I examine how experiences of displacement, cultural translation, and adaptation become embedded in memory and perception. Through processes of layering and transformation, my paintings reflect on identity as something continuously formed through encounters with people, places, and changing environments.
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2024
Grin and bear it foundation b.a.d Rotterdam, Netherlands www.foundationbad.nl/grin-and-bear-it/ Project delves into exploring the connection between smiling and sadness by meeting with individuals to uncover hidden emotions. The study references Carney Landis research on smiles, highlighting that not all smiles convey happiness. Participants will experiment with expressing various emotions through smiles, guessing others' emotions, and creating smile-related content.
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2023
When tomato becomes a peace of cake The Hague, Netherlands youtu.be/T6WzrDTOElY As millions of other Ukrainians, the artist experienced stress of changing the environment and living in uncertainty with strangers. Her work is full of complex stories about loneliness and equity, rights, and cultural cliches. There is a subtle mix of intonations: from humour to sorrow, and the hope of finding a place to call home. The work consists of two parts: the first is documenting the artist’s everyday life, and the second represents the artist’s internal world that exists in parallel with daily routine. Krutova performs as the main character, showing her story of being hosted by a Dutch family. She picks up on physical changes, such as not eating sugar because her hosts would not eat it, cooking different food, and wearing different clothes — in short, completely transforming her habits and self-representation, unavoidably entering an internal conflict. Sound is a key element in the piece, portraying the rapid changing of feelings. It also includes motives from Ukrainian traditional songs referring to the baggage the artist brings to her new context. The project addresses the questions: Is “home” a place or an emotional state? Can you find new home within a new society without being rooted in it? And will you loose yourself while searching for your new identity?
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2022
I don't think I'll stay here long Nolimitartcastle Amsterdam, Netherlands youtu.be/n05cpttBf60 It is a complex narrative about loneliness and togetherness, kindness and cultural cliches, humor and sorrow, but also about support and a hope to have home again. This project was comissioned by Outsiderland, Amsterdam and supported by FOTODOK, Utrecht and is a collaboration between artists Yaroslava Krutova and Jana Romanova.
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2022
Down There in the Cherry Garden Perdu Amsterdam, Netherlands youtu.be/IosmZreR4ik The title of the work is the first line of a Ukrainian song that has been passed through generations. It appears in a series of paintings, writings, and sound recordings of a diary that Yaroslava was writing since the beginning of the war. In this work, the diary is a method of the translation of consciousness, transition to the Ukrainian language as much as it aims for poetical documentation of the events of the more than 100 days of an ongoing war through the iconographies of protest and intimate moments. The different forms of expression are an attempt to express the movement of translation and share feelings while addressing the untranslatability of different aspects of a language.
International exchanges/Residencies
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2025Rotterdam, Netherlands Сonducting research on the contradictory nature of a smile www.foundationbad.nl
Commissions
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2022
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2022I don't think I'll stay here long Nolimitartcastle Amsterdam, Netherlands This project was commissioned by Outsiderland, Amsterdam and supported by FOTODOK, Utrecht. nolimitsartcastle.nl/en/ finished
Sales/Works in collections
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2026Birds Private Collection Bielefeld, Duitsland Combination of oil paint and acrylic on canvas 80*60*2
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2026Kigsday's crowd Private Collection Kiel, Duitsland Acryl on canvas 25*25
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2025Way Private Collection Amsterdam, Nederland Combination of oil paint and acrylic on canvas 30*40
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2025Vol Private Collection Amsterdam, Nederland Combination of oil paint and acrylic on canvas 50*50
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2023Streams of life Private Collection Heiloo, Nederland Acryl on canvas 20*20
Publications
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2023When Tomato Becomes a Piece of Cake Poster IVA Groep BV When Tomato Becomes a Piece of Cake Rotterdam, Netherlands
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2022Weawing with Words. Fragments of Fragile Conversations Book Growing Pains Weawing with Words. Fragments of Fragile Conversations Utrecht, Netherlands growingpains.nl/Makers
Awards and grants
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2022When Tomato Becomes a Piece of Cake Nederlands Letterenfonds The Hague, Netherlands THE SUPPORT FUND IS ADMINISTERED BY THE DUTCH FOUNDATION FOR LITERATURE, IN COLLABORATION WITH THE OTHER DUTCH NATIONAL CULTURAL FOUNDATIONS (THE CREATIVE INDUSTRIES FUND NL, THE MONDRIAAN FUND, THE NETHERLANDS FILM FUND, THE PERFORMING ART FUND NL AND THE CULTURAL PARTICIPATION FUND).
Secondary art-related activities
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2024 - 2024''One Day Residency'' event on Eiland von Brienenoord