Painting Emotions and Stories Through Collage with Olena Hrynevych
Olena Hrynevych is a talented collage artist from Kyiv, Ukraine. With a background in history and education, she uses her art to share stories and emotions through carefully chosen images and textures.
In this interview, she talks about how her creative process is guided by intuition and experimentation, allowing her art to unfold naturally. Olena finds inspiration everywhere—from her world to her feelings and memories. She also shares how she handles creative blocks, seeing them not as obstacles but as moments to pause and reset. Olena’s passion for art goes beyond creating—it’s about connecting with viewers. She hopes people feel something personal when they see her work.
Olena Hrynevych, an accomplished collage artist from Kyiv, Ukraine, blends traditional techniques with modern approaches. With a Master’s degree in History and experience in education, she has always found inspiration through art. Her collages, which have been exhibited across Ukraine and the EU and recognized in U.S. competitions, are featured in several permanent collections.
Olena approaches collage as a dialogue between elements, where each piece retains its uniqueness while contributing to a larger story. Her creative process centers on contrast, synthesis, and experimentation, allowing fragments to interact and find new meanings. Olena seeks to engage viewers in emotional and intellectual conversations through her layered expressions, encouraging personal interpretation and connection through her art.
1. What is your creative process like from start to finish?
My creative process is a journey inward into a space where words do not yet exist, but there is already a pulsating sense of form, meaning, and necessity. It all begins with a fleeting premonition—sometimes a slow emergence of something without a name. This feeling must be nurtured, examined, and listened to, often in silence. Then, the work begins—a search for the matter through which this premonition can take shape. It may be color, texture, line, or rhythm. Sometimes, the process resists, shifts, and leads me astray. Sometimes, it is harsh and meditative. But the most important thing is to hold onto the depth. Not to stop at the surface or be tempted by the obvious. I pursue this search until I find the point where the work becomes self-sufficient. Where there is no longer a need to prove, explain, or refine. It simply exists. It resonates. That moment is both a release and a completion. But every completion is the beginning of a new journey.
My creativity aims to establish a visual dialogue with the viewer, offering opportunities for open interpretation.
Olena Hrynevych
2. Where do you find inspiration for your artwork?
Inspiration is not a flash or sudden revelation but a state of being. It is always near if you are attuned to listen. I do not seek it in something particular. Rather, I notice it in the small things—pauses and what lingers between words. In the voids that speak just as much as forms. In the movement of time, which leaves traces—not only on the material world but also in consciousness. The exploration process inspires me: What remains when the unnecessary is stripped away? Where is the boundary between presence and disappearance? What makes an image alive and silent? Inspiration is not something external that comes to me. It is already within. One only needs to learn to recognize one’s voice.
3. How do you handle creative blocks or periods of low inspiration?
A creative block is not an obstacle but a pause—a temporary silence that holds meaning. I don’t fight this state. It doesn’t come without reason. Sometimes, it’s a sign to stop and rethink the path, clear my perception, and allow the space within me to expand. In these moments, I observe—myself, the space, the state, and nature. Sometimes, it helps to switch focus—movement, reading, silence. The key is not to force the process. I know that emptiness is never endless. At some point, something within will start resonating again, and the work will continue naturally, without strain. Creativity is like breathing; its pauses are just as crucial as the breaths.
4. What role does experimentation play in your art practice?
Experimentation is the way to create art. If you work familiarly, you can quickly become stagnant, repeating yourself. Experimentation destroys this predictability; it allows you to step outside of comfort and see the process from a new point of view. But for me, experimentation is not just a search for the latest for the sake of the new. It’s a way to understand more deeply the very nature of an image, a material, a meaning. Sometimes, it’s a subtle shift, a radical break with the familiar. The experiment must be honest, not an external effect. There are no guarantees in art. It is always a risk, always a step into the unknown. But it is there – beyond the boundaries of the familiar – that the most alive, fundamental thing is often hidden.
At the core of my creativity is the belief that combining meaningful elements creates a space for multiple interpretations.
Olena Hrynevych
5. What do you hope people take away from experiencing your art?
I want the viewer not just to look but to feel. I want art to become not an answer but an invitation to reflection, memory, and inner dialog. I don’t want to impose a particular perception. People must find something of their own in the artwork – perhaps unexpected, perhaps forgotten, but always personal. Sometimes it will be a quiet, barely perceptible feeling, sometimes it will be a sharp recognition. The main thing is that the picture finds an inner response in the person who sees it.
Olena’s art allows viewers to connect, reflect, and find their meanings within her layered compositions. Her passion for experimentation and expression makes her work a heartfelt invitation to explore art beyond what meets the eye. To learn more about Olena, click here.
