Biography
Valeria Trubina (born 1966, Luhansk) is a painter, graphic artist, and creator of art objects and installations.
1981 – 1985 – Studied at the Luhansk Art College in the Fine Arts Department.
From 1988 – Has participated in numerous exhibitions in Ukraine and abroad, working in painting, graphic design, and theatrical design.
1989 – Graduated from the Department of Theater and Set Design at the Kyiv State Art Institute. Attended painting classes under Viktor Puzyrkov. After graduating from the institute, she worked for a short period at the Kyivnaukfilm film studio.
1989, 1991 – Participant in the youth plein-air workshops in Sedniv led by Tiberiy Silvashi and Oleksandr Soloviov.
1990 – Member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine.
1990 – 1994 – Member of the Paris Commune creative group in Kyiv.
1993 – Following the tragic death of Oleh Holosiy, she emigrated first to Edinburgh (Scotland) and, starting in 1994, lived in Chicago (USA).
1995 – Returned to Kyiv, working in shared studios alongside Maksym Mamsikov, Oleksandr Klymenko, Yuriy Solomko, Tetiana Hershuni-Halahan, Arsen Savadov, and Heorhiy Senchenko, as well as in the studio of Larysa Pisha. In collaboration with artist Heorhiy Senchenko, she created set designs and costumes for productions at the Lesya Ukrainka National Academic Theater of Russian Drama.
1998 – Relocated to the USA.
Lives and works in Ukraine and the United States.
Valeria Trubina belongs to the Ukrainian “New Tender” [Novi Nizhni] – artists whose creative debut occurred in the late 1980s and was intertwined with official academic education and culture. Her early painting commands attention through its symbolism, narrative quality, and a distinct sense of “seriousness”. Kostiantyn Akinsha emphasized that “the artist forms a multilayered symbolic narrative” and desires “an art that is terrifying, mysterious, and profoundly thoughtful.”
The artist engaged in a search for a new plastic language in painting. “She began constructing her own artistic language based on religious themes, world mythologies, apocalyptic theories, and Latin American literature. The artist often executed her canvases over a pre-applied underpainting of tempera or oil. This created a peculiar texture and added three-dimensional depth to the painting. The theme of faith became a unifying thread throughout her oeuvre. Trubina places existential questions within a sarcastic-philosophical shell. For this reason, she quickly succumbed to the ‘sin of Savadovism’ (a return to large formats, grotesque, and a ‘curly style’) and just as rapidly shed it in search of her own voice” (Olesia Avramenko).
