Biography

Alena Vasilyeva was born in St Petersburg in 1975. She graduated from the St Petersburg Boris Ioganson State Academy Art Lyceum magna cum laude (1993) and the Painting faculty cum laude (1998) and completed a post-graduate course at the Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia. She continued her professional development at the St Petersburg State Ilya Repin Academic Institute for Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (2009).

Associate Professor of the Department of Drawing at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia. Honoured as a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) and of the Russian Union of Artists (2004), she is also a member of the St Petersburg Watercolour Artists’ Society. She has produced more than fifty articles about contemporary problems in the arts and art education.

She has been presented with the St Tatiana Badge of Honour in the category “Teacher-Mentor” (2010), the Certificate of Merit of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation (2009), the State Scholarship of the Ministry of Culture of Russia for Graphic Arts (2006), the Russian Presidential Scholarship (2001), the Ministry of Culture Salary Grant, a nomination for “Art and Architecture” (2000) and the St Petersburg Government Scholarship (1996).

Award Winner at international, Russian and St Petersburg based competitions for creative works including:

    • 2nd prize at the International Art Festival Bravo, Turku 2012! (Turku, Finland, 2012);
    • Prize-winner at the North-West of Russia through My Eyes painting competition, run by the USA Consulate General in St Petersburg (USA-Russia, St Petersburg, 2012);
    • Prize-winner at the I all-Russian art competition From Ancient Rus’ to Modern Russia (Moscow, 2006);
    • Prize-winner at the St Petersburg Muses competition in the graphic arts category (St Petersburg, 1998);
    • Prize-winner at the Europe at School international youth competition in the graphics category (France, Strasburg, 1996).

Paintings by Alena Vasilyeva hang in the Vasnetsov Brothers Art Museum of Vyatka, the Omsk Mikhail Vrubel Regional Museum of Fine Arts, the Vyborg Castle Museum, the Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, the Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Museum of Xi’an’s Academy of Fine Arts (Xi’an, China), the CCTV Channel Collection Art and Calligraphy (Beijing, China), the Beijing Sanchuan International Art Gallery (Beijing, China), the Lanzhou Government (China), the Villa Tiziana (Venice, Italy) and in private collections in Russia, Germany, Italy, Turkey, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the USA and Canada.

The artist has had nineteen personal exhibitions including The First Exhibition (1997, St Petersburg, the Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia), Coming back to Summer (2001, St Petersburg, Fontanka Theatre), On-Board, Off-Board and Ashore (2003, 2004, Ukraine), Thirty Watercolour Phrases (2005, St Petersburg, NAIV Gallery), Petersburg Suite (2006, St Petersburg, Salon Sentiabrev), Petersburg Watercolour (2008, China, Lanzhou), Watercolour (2009, China, Shijiazhuang), St Petersburg. Spring (2010, St Petersburg, ART-Object Gallery), In Blooming Garden (2011, St Petersburg, Grand-Canyon shopping centre) and Selecta (2012, China, CCTV, Beijing).

Alena Vasilyeva has participated in more than two hundred city-based, Russian and international art exhibitions since 1992.