The oil paintings of Olena Bogatska are at once wonderfully dreamy and grounded in the everyday. On paper, Bogatska’s pieces seem to be traditional still lifes: flowers in vases, fresh fruit, quaintly striped tablecloths and linens. Her flowers are lovingly and precisely rendered, from alliums to yarrow, containing multilayered inner life.

 

Bogatska’s compositions are incredibly spare. They often contain only a single visual element - one animal, or one grouping of vases on a table. The background is simply a sheet of texture. The palette is stripped down so Bogatska can examine the nuances of one hue. Her studies of flowers treat a single bloom as a main character in the painting. Her images of vast things, such as a storm at sea, are examined at close range. She paints the portrait of an entire ocean using just one seagull atop the crest of one wave.

 

Bogatska was born in the Ukraine and studied art in London.