Metamorphoses is a series about a threshold state—the subtle moment when reality begins to fragment, losing its clear contours.
In the artist’s works, we encounter inner landscapes and architectures that seem to merge with human bodies or, conversely, absorb them. These are not literal narratives, but rather fragments of sensations that together form a unified state.
These works speak of experiences that are difficult to articulate in words.
They reflect a way of seeing the world as a sequence of separate frames—fragmentary, non-linear.
At the same time, the series addresses the theme of ecology in its broader sense—as coexistence. It explores our interaction with the spaces we inhabit and with the living beings alongside whom we exist. It is an attempt to capture a fragile balance between body and environment, between the self and everything else.
Olena Kurzel was born in Yuzhnoukrainsk, Mykolaiv region. She graduated from the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture with a degree in easel painting (2023). She works across painting, small-scale sculpture, embroidery, photo and video art, and installation. Since 2017, she has actively participated in exhibition projects in Ukraine and abroad. She held a solo exhibition at the Gard Gallery (Yuzhnoukrainsk, 2018), participated in Art Auction BER4UA in Berlin (2022), the project Don’t Close Your Eyes at Grimshaw-Gudewicz Gallery (Fall River, Massachusetts, USA, 2022), as well as other exhibitions in Ukraine and internationally. She lives and works in Kyiv.