Romanova Alena (Elena Vaclavovna)

All-Russian Museum of Decorative and Applied Arts, Moscow
Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, Moscow
Serpukhov Historical and Art Museum, Serpukhov
I. Goff, Moscow
S. Rozelman, New York, USA
Private collection, United Kingdom
Private collection, Netherlands

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
1990 "Object Art." Art Salon, Moscow Cultural Foundation, Moscow
1994 "Villa dei misteri. Image and Likeness." Magazine 'Znanie-sila', Moscow
1996 "Studies." Russian Research Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage, Moscow
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
1978-80 Annual youth exhibitions of Moscow artists
1983 "Costume and Jewelry." House of Artists on Kuznetsky Most, Moscow
1984 Youth Exhibition
1985 "1st Moscow Jewelry Exhibition." All-Russian Museum of Decorative and Applied Arts, Moscow
1986 "VIII Biennale Internationale Limoges." Limoges, France
1987 "Soviet Artistic Enamel." Zagorsk
"Enamel Seminar." Palanga, Riga, Vilnius, Leningrad, Moscow
1988 "IX Biennale Internationale Limoges." Limoges, France
"2nd Moscow Jewelry Exhibition." All-Russian Museum of Decorative and Applied Arts, Moscow
1989 All-Union Enamel Exhibition. All-Russian Museum of Decorative and Applied Arts, Moscow
"Contemporary Jewelry Art." International Exhibition. All-Russian Museum of Decorative and Applied Arts, Moscow
1990-91 "The Pyramid Show." Association "Moscow Palette." Sydney, Adelaide, Australia
1993 "Shop" (exhibition curator). Shop "Konstantin." Olympic Complex, Moscow
1995 "Russian Women in Art." Conway Hall, London, UK
"Artistic Enamel and Easel Art." International Exhibition. All-Russian Museum of Decorative and Applied Arts, Moscow
1996 "Contemporary Jewelry Art." International Exhibition. All-Russian Museum of Decorative and Applied Arts, Moscow
1997 "Reverse Perspective – Russian Minimalism," to the Days of New Art in Rzhev (participant and curator)
PERFORMANCES
1995 "Magic Session." All-Russian Film Festival, Suzdal

Art as an object. The object as art. An artist is one who works on the picture of the world in the very moment when the 'picture' has ceased to exist. The importance of material, as there is the problem of embodiment, of gaining flesh. 'Animation' of dead zones of vision and sensation.

Alena Romanova is not quite a graphic artist and not quite a jeweler; rather, she engages in unconventional experiments with paper and metal. The same themes of organic interconnectedness of forms that appear in her large paper objects—reminiscent of pop-up books or intricately organized theatrical models—play out on the small space of her jewelry. These objects transcend the status of accessories, forming a language, a script, a system of signs. In this maximalist quest for truth, her stylistically diverse art becomes unified—whether jewelry or works with 'living' space, where packaging cardboard transforms into the image of a landscape, a mythological scene or 'remake', or an optical 'veristic' object. If the law is universal, it must explain the structure of connections of everything with everything, and the manual effort guarantees the truth of the result.

Life itself in these works reveals its multilayered nature—as there is no hierarchy in the arrangement of structural levels of the pictorial text, and it is unclear in the homogeneous whole where the 'message' is, and where the background or 'noise' is. Obvious layers swap places with invisible ones, the background with the 'picture', the front with the reverse; each layer is a surface—it alone is genuine, objective, and not attached to the affirmation of the artist's 'selfhood'. Of course, with jewelry art, the principle of exposing the reverse and the 'inside' is absolutely against the rules; but the research-driven, analytical impetus pushes the artist to 'out-of-guild' actions—beauty of the object is conceived as the beauty of all things at once, the beauty of harmony and series, a peculiar law of the structure of the world.
G. Yelshevskaya