Alena Kroshechkina is a London-based Russian artist, who’s dedicated her past 6 years to painting fashion-related artworks. Experimenting with traditional drawing skills from A4 illustrational format to large-scale oil painting, she was inspired by psychological subjects from the fashion industry, such as consumerism, mental health, model exploitation and loneliness amongst young consumers. ” I have combined and experimented with these subjects in my work as well as used another, dark side of the industry and fashion brands in art to express feelings and thoughts.”
” On one side, I try to indicate and highlight the problems and troubles in the fashion industry, and on the other, I express my inner world and personality.”
Born in the mid-90’s, in a time when Russia was actively integrating Western culture into Post-Soviet Union society, she watched a mix of USSR, Studio Ghibli and Walt Disney cartoons.
” Most of the clothes I wore after my older sister and cousins. My parents told me to take care of my stuff, environment, family and relationships.
Before moving to London I finished classic art school being strongly interested in Russian and Austrian Symbolism, especially Gustav Klimt, Mikhail Vrubel, Hieronymus Bosch and Salvador Dali artists. I admire their unique styles, deep understanding of issues and topics chosen by them, abilities to express their ideas via symbols and signs and attention to small details in paintings.
Studying at UAL, I met my friends who were into fashion and introduced me to its complex and controversial world. I found it interesting and started researching fashion artists and illustrations. Looking at mostly glamorous, bright and superficial illustrations, I couldn’t understand why people like them, why artists didn’t use their visual language for expressing deeper stuff and why everyone said about troubles in fashion but didn’t paint them. People define that clothes can express your complex personality, however, most of fashion artists don’t use their unique abilities to tackle problems through their artworks.
I believe that fashion has a direct connection to human psychology, feelings and behaviours. My purpose is to continue my artistic self-expression using clothes, brands and psychological subject matters to highlight the issues and make positive changes in the industry and for the consumers. ”