Oxana Kovalchuk, a visual artist based in New York and born in Kazakhstan, earned her MFA at SVA (NYC) in 2019.

In her artistic exploration, Oxana Kovalchuk delves into themes of transformation, resilience, memory, psychological and cultural challenges of immigration, and adaptability to change. With a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology, she seamlessly integrates her knowledge into her research and artwork.

Kovalchuk’s group exhibitions include two museum shows, “Exhibitour” at the Wausau Museum of Contemporary Art and “Stories from my Childhood” at the Museum of Art of the Northern Illinois University. Selected other group shows: the government-led project “Art x Climate Fifth National Climate Assessment” in Washington DC, “Absurdity” (Woman Made Gallery, Chicago IL), “Ethnicity through the Eyes of the Artists” (Abington Art Center, Jenkintown PA), “Dialogue with artists in Northeast China” (Lankai Art Gallery, Anshan City, China, 2020), to name a few. Along with that, she had two solo shows – “Roots” (Kente Royal Gallery) and “Making Fools Pray to God” (Gallery 456), both in 2022.

In 2023, Kovalchuk successfully completed her inaugural collaborative project with the Only Make Believe theater, dedicated to bringing joy to children in hospitals.

In 2021, Kovalchuk’s piece “Diary of Memory” joined the collection of the Williamsburg Art & Historical Center in Brooklyn, NYC. Founder and curator Yoko Nii recognized the significance of this artwork.

The year of 2024 for Oxana Kovalchuk starts at the Kunstraum art residency in Brooklyn, NY.

VIEW OXANA KOVALCHUK’s CV

A cacophony of memories, an immigrants’ adaptability, cultural shifts, and power of the human spirit are the key threads I’m pursuing as an artist.

I was born and raised in Kazakhstan, a little known country in Asia. Traditional art in Kazakhstan is applied mixed media art: the decoration of household objects, carpet-weaving, pottery, leatherwork. My relationship with my birth country is complex though, due to the fact that my grandparents were forcefully displaced there by the Soviet regime. Since my teenage years, I have been thinking where my true roots would have been.

Via multimedia experiences , my work explores the relationship between myself and my life journey of a ‘legal alien’ through four countries. A portion of my work is glass collage. In order to make collages look complete, I use light boxes to illuminate the glass from the back. Thus, electricity and light are also elements in my arsenal of mediums that add an extra dimension to the artwork.

The fascination with the limitations of life led me to pursue a degree in psychology that now an underlying factor in my art. I incorporate my psychological knowledge into my creative process to introspect my artwork concept from different angles.