Elena Kourenkova

ELENA KOURENKOVA was born in 1966 in Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad), Russia.

She describes growing up under the authoritarian Soviet regime. "In order to survive, ordinary Russians had to wear a drab look of obedience and self suppression.  I had always wanted to escape from that total uniformity and find the way to express my vision in life in a different way, reflecting a happier, funny side of everyday existence. My characters sometimes seem emotionally isolated, keeping themselves to themselves, even when they are clustered in groups, but they are not lacking emotions, they only express them in their own way. They are content and happy, yet they do not take themselves too seriously." 

Elena graduated from the Architectural Institute in Volgograd in 1988 with a degree in Architecture and Design and a diploma in technical translating. She worked as an architect until 1990, when she moved from Volgograd to Moscow.  During the years of Perestroika she worked as an interior designer and technical translator and she studied art and drawing.  She now lives and paints in Scotland and has won a number of awards including the Daler-Rowney front page competition -1st prize for Smooth Operator and the North Ayrshire Ninth Annual Open Art Exhibition -1st prize.