OLGA MAKHNO (Professional name: OLYA MAKHNO)
BIO
Olga Makhno (b. 1987) is a multidisciplinary artist, performer, curator and educator working across installation, performance, painting, video and sculpture. Her practice explores themes of memory, trauma, empathy, myth-making, and the concept of the Space of Timelessness through hybrid forms combining visual art, text, and performative actions.
Since 2023, she has presented more seven solo exhibitions, including projects at CCI Fabrika, Cube.Moscow, and White Alleys Gallery, and has participated in numerous institutional and international exhibitions, art fairs, and residency programmes. Alongside her artistic practice, she has curated more than fourteen contemporary art exhibitions, supporting emerging artists and interdisciplinary dialogue.
ARTIST STATEMENT
in theme of my practice is the Space of Timelessness — a state that exists before emotion. It is the ability to observe and reflect on oneself, others, events, and objects without haste or pain, as if seen from a distance. By slowing down and creating distance, we gain the opportunity to examine something in every moment of its existence. This becomes especially vital when the subject feels almost impossible to face without despair. Themes such as violence, the fragility of the world and the human being, asceticism, fear, silence and waiting, empathy, wounds, personal and collective memory, mythic tone, or sheer will — demand that I choose words and materials with great care, in order to be understood truthfully.
I am a multidisciplinary artist working through performance, installation and public participation. I explore and create hybrids of mediums to express complex ideas in the most resonant way. Whether working with installation, painting, collage, or video art, I seek the medium that allows me to tell a story with honesty. My performative practice and use of my own physicality are also essential — they let me act as a kind of conductor between the viewer and what I want to say about the world today.
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
- Collection of the Centre for Creative Industries Fabrika, Moscow (acquired 2026)
- GULAG History Museum Collection, Moscow (acquired in 2022)
- Private collections in Russia, Germany, Spain and Israel, including those of Alisa Prudnikova, cultural manager and founding director of GES-2; Olga Popova, art historian, curator and founder of AuktsiON et ctr
SELECTED PRESS & INTERVIEWS
DEL’ARTE Magazine, coverage of “Mama, Сan We Talk?” exhibition by A. Pavlovskaya, curated by Olya Makhno | 7 July 2026
The Art Newspaper Russia, publication featuring Olga Makhno's work | 30 July 2025
Snob, “5 Works by Olga Makhno”, feature within the ArtAkt project | 13 May 2025
SKREW, review of the solo exhibition Maybe One More Time, Huh?, CCI "Fabrika" | 6 December 2023
IPQuorum, interview: “Art Is the Only Possible Way for Me to Communicate with the World” | 5 May 2023
Moscow School of Contemporary Art (MSCA), interview: “Contemporary Artist” | 23 January 2023
TEACHING
2023–present – Tutor and Curator, British Higher School of Art & Design / Universal University
2022–present – Tutor, I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University
2023–present – Tutor and Curator, RadioPaint
EDUCATION
2022 – Professional Diploma in Contemporary Art, Moscow School of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia
2023 – Professional Diploma in Illustration, British Higher School of Art & Design, Moscow, Russia
2008 – Screenwriting Programme, Interschool, Kyiw, Ukraine
2018 – MA in Linguistics and Literary Studies, St. Tikhon's Orthodox University, Moscow, Russia
2009 – BA in Russian Literature and Television Journalism, Donetsk National University, Ukraine
POSITIONS
2026–present — Resident Artist, 11.12 Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2023–present — Tutor and Curator, British Higher School of Art & Design / Universal University, Moscow, Russia
2022–present — Independent Artist and Curator
2022–present — Tutor, I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University, Moscow, Russia
СV
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2026 – "Olya, Go F** yourself", pop-up solo exhibition, Artplay, Moscow, Russia
2025 – "Consent to a Fairy Tale”, CСI "Fabrika", Moscow, Russia
2025 – "The Magpie-Crow", White alleys, Moscow, Russia
2024 – "Nameless River", Cube.Moscow, Moscow, Russia
2024 – "1\10", "On Peschanaya Gallery", Moscow, Russia
2024 – "Maybe One More Time, Huh?", CСI "Fabrika", Moscow, Russia
2023 – "O-", Sol Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2023 – "Gray Wolf", Rostokino, Moscow, Russia
2023 – week of performances based on the results of Montemero Art Residency, Spain
2010 – Art Museum. Kuindzhi, Mariupol, Ukraine
CURATORIAL PROJECTS
2026 – Mom, Can We Talk?, solo exhibition by Alexandra, Pavlovskaya, FUTURO Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2026 – "Girls' Tears"– Curator, Shmukler gallery, Moscow, Russia
2026 – "Believe, Don't Believe"– Curator, CCA Winzavod, Moscow, Russia
2026 – "Shelter", solo exhibition by Tanya Ivankova – Curator, Korney gallery, Moscow, Russia
2026 – Mimicry– Curator, ССI "Fabrika", Moscow, Russia
2025 – "City Layout"– Curator, Hlebozavod, Moscow, Russia
2025 – "aha you hear that radio too"– Curator, Сube.Moscow, Moscow, Russia
2025 – "Not me!”, Trubnaya gallery– Curator, Moscow, Russia
2024 – "What I found in the steppe", solo exhibition by Ulyana Agban– Curator, Rostokino, Moscow, Russia
2024 – "That's how it was"– Curator, Space 13 gallery, Samara, Russia
2024 – "Still New Year. Still Adults"– Curator, 11.12 Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2024 – "12 views"– Curator, Twelve reasons, Moscow, Russia
2024 – “How Am I? How Are You?” (a two-part exhibition) – Curator, U Contemporary, CCA Winzavod, Moscow, Russia
2023 – "one-one"– Curator, "On Peschanaya Gallery", Moscow, Russia
2022 – "While adults are talking"– Curator, CCA Winzavod, Moscow, Russia
RESIDENCES
2026 – Zarya, Vladivostok (Now), Russia
2025 – CСI "Fabrika" X session of the contest of the program "Factory workshops", Moscow, Russia
2024 – Art Can Help, Contemporary artist, teacher, volunteer project, Kisumu, Kenya
2023 – Pause/play: culture under pressure, Yerevan, Armenia
2023-24 – CСI "Fabrika" IX session of the contest of the program "Factory workshops", Moscow, Russia
2022-2023 – Montemero, Spain
2023 – Karelian network of art residences. Sortavala, Russia
ART FAIR
2026 – Catalog | Shmukler gallery, Moscow, Russia
2026 – Contour Fair. Graphics, Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia | dispar:d gallery
2026 – Contour Fair. Photos, Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia | culture gallery
2025 – Cosmoscow, Moscow, Russia | presented by CCI Fabrika
2025 – Contour Fair, Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia | Elephant in the Louvre gallery
2023 – Blazar Young Art Fair, Moscow, Russia | presented by ACI
2023 – Art Moscow, Moscow, Russia | presented by ACI
SELECTED COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS 21-26
2026 – "At the Same Speed", 11.12 gallery, Moscow, Russia
2026 – "In the Reflections of the Lifeworld", "Shtab" Contemporary Art Center, Ryazan, Russia
2026 – "Believe, Don't Believe", Center for Contemporary Art Winzavod, Moscow, Russia
2026 – Bolotnaya Biennale III, MDM Palace, Moscow, Russia
2026 – "Imprints of Memory", Sistema gallery, Moscow, Russia
2025 – "A House from Cellar to Attic", Zaraysk, Russia
2025 – II Chuvash Biennale of Contemporary Art, Seven-Winged home, Cheboksary, Russia
2025 – "Pearliness", CCI Fabrika, Moscow, Russia
2024 – Bolotnaya Biennale, NII "Snegiri",Moscow, Russia
2024 – Open vol.4., A-s-t-r-a Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2024 – "After New Year", 11.12 Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2024 – II Karelian Biennale of Fine Arts, Petrozavodsk, Russia
2023 – "The Last Off-site Show on The Earth at Plague Space and Everywhere", Plague Space, Krasnodar, Russia
2023 – "Tupik 2023", АRT4, Moscow, Russia
2023 – Krasnenkaya Biennale of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, Russia
2023 – "One-One", "On Peschanaya Gallery", Moscow, Russia
2023 – "Who is Ophelia", Eulengasse, Frankfurt on the Main, Germany
2023 – "Forms of Memory", Nikolai Ostrovsky Museum, Moscow, Russia
2022 – "Issue-2022. Media Center", Zaryadye Park, Moscow, Russia
2022 – "While Adults are talking" (two parts), Center for Contemporary Art Winzavod, Moscow, Russia
2022 – "The Refraction of Time", "All-Russian Museum of Decorative Art", Moscow, Russia
2022 – "Save as..", GULAG History Museum, Moscow, Russia
2022 – "Borders of Freedom", pop-up exhibition, Tel Aviv-Jaffa
2021 – I Karelian Biennale of Fine Arts, Petrozavodsk, Russia
SELECTED RECOGNITION
2023 – Winner of the “Art Practicum” program by AKI, receiving a personal booth at the Art Moscow fair
2022 – Best Multidisciplinary Project, Universal University (curatorial project “While the Adults Are Talking”)
LITERARY & EDITORIAL PUBLICATIONS
Takie Dela, publication of the illustrated short story "Podvorotnya so Skvoznyakom", featuring both text and artwork by Olga Makhno | Russia, 19 August 2022
BURO., original artwork commissioned and published as part of the editorial series "Artists Draw for BURO." | Russia, 17 May 2022
BURO., original artwork commissioned and published as part of the editorial series "Artists Draw for BURO." | Russia, 8 December 2021
Stories and Play, illustrated book publication | Westfalen, Germany, 2017
ARCHIVES & CATALOGUES
Russian Art Archive Network (Garage Museum of Contemporary Art), archival documentation and project records
Step by step
my quiet stories
walk in circles.
Step by step,
treading softly,
across,
not along
time.
