Alisa Lozhkina is a Ukrainian-born, California-based art historian, curator, and artist whose work bridges contemporary art and ancient spiritual traditions. Author of The Art of Ukraine (Thames & Hudson, 2024) and Ukrainian translator of the Devi Mahatmya, a key Indian scripture on the feminine divine, she has also curated major exhibitions at leading international institutions. As an artist, she creates quilts and dolls that function as contemporary icons - vessels for memory, spirit, and myth. Her practice moves between scholarship and shamanic imagination, stitching together worlds that modern culture has split apart.
I was born in Kyiv, Ukraine and spent most of my life there, traveling extensively for work. I had a successful career as an art critic and curator, authoring a book about the history of Ukrainian art and curating projects at large European museums. I collaborated with such renowned institutions as Ludwig Museum and Centre Pompidou, worked as the chief curator of an art center, and edited an art magazine. After the war in Ukraine started, I lectured at Yale, Berkeley, Arizona State, and other places about my country, its complicated history, and vibrant contemporary art scene. I also curated a Ukrainian art exhibition to support my people. The show was presented at the Aspen Institute's main campus in Colorado and later traveled to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. If you would like to know more about this side of my personality, you are welcome to visit my LinkedIn and Academia pages, which I try to keep updated. This website is dedicated solely to my artistic practice, which I embraced as my main occupation after moving to the U.S.
I moved to the United States in 2020 in the middle of the pandemic. It was not the best time to start a new life, but I enjoyed the challenge. I had a super busy life before, traveling between continents for years, and never thought that my life could be put on hold in a day. The pandemic gave me an opportunity to rethink my life and priorities. I finally had the courage to admit openly what I had already secretly known for years: I was burned out and not satisfied with my career. All I wanted to do in this world was to make my own art.
It wasn't the first time I had this urge. When I was a kid, I was obsessed with art. My grandmother told me that at the age of three, I would wake up early in the morning and tell her, "All I want to do now is draw." But when I learned how to read, books became a bigger obsession than art. I forgot that I loved painting for many years and instead focused on studying philosophy, history, political science, and culture. After I graduated from university, I returned to art but in a completely different role. I started working at an art gallery, curating projects, and writing about other people's work. My grown-up life began. I lived among interesting people, was making big projects, I don't regret anything.
Around 2008, I had a huge urge to paint again. I thought that making art and going public about it would contradict my career as an art critic and curator who is supposed to judge other people's work. It's a silly prejudice, I know, but this idea had been rooted so deeply in my head that it took me more than ten years to overcome it. I worked with contemporary art and wanted to keep my personal art practice as far as possible from the world of my daily activity. I am also very deeply interested in spirituality of all sorts, which is why I started taking lessons in icon painting. Icon painting is a big tradition in the Orthodox world. It was almost lost in my country during the communist times, and when I started learning it, it still had a taste of rediscovering the roots and forgotten identities.
That initial interest towards religious painting shaped my further practice. Even when I moved from the traditional technique of egg tempera on wood to oil on canvas and to my own stories instead of the canonically approved iconography, I still continued exploring certain topics. For instance, you might notice that the Mother and Child motif is a recurring theme in my paintings. I don't have children, and at certain stages of my life, facing this situation was a big challenge. I used painting as a means to overcome pain and anxiety and also as a way to look for deeper meanings of motherhood.
In 2012, I moved to Moscow, Russia, to study film direction at a film school. However, when a revolution broke out in my country, Russia annexed Crimea and started a hybrid war in eastern Ukraine. I returned home and worked on several international exhibitions of contemporary Ukrainian art. I did not quit filmmaking. Just after the revolution, when our former president Viktor Yanukovych fled the country, I was leading a group of activists who were trying to prevent his luxurious mansion from being looted in the heat of the moment. I started documenting all these events, and that is how my first film, Who Is Without Sin?, came to life. After that, I worked on several short documentaries. Not all of them are finished but I hope to complete them one day.
I kept painting for years, but only my closest people were aware of this side of my life. In 2020, after I moved to the US, my husband took me to Joann Fabrics. I had a sudden idea to start sewing, and I made a small bear and then a larger mermaid. I fell in love with creating textile sculptures, and I also went public with my art for the first time in my life. I started posting it on social media and presenting myself as an artist. This was a huge breakthrough for me.
The Bay Area and sunset walks around Don Edwards bird preserve in Alviso were my main source of inspiration. I imagined magical creatures that lived in those swamps, and I started writing stories about each textile doll that I made. Later, when we moved to Los Gatos in the heart of the Santa Cruz Mountains, I discovered a whole new world of a redwood forest. Today, it is my main source of inspiration. I made several dolls who represent spirits inhabiting our forest, and I am planning to dedicate a whole project to this topic.
In 2022, I was learning how to use my Circuit Maker and had to learn some basics of working with SVG files. For that purpose, my husband suggested that I download Affinity Designer to my iPad. I took a Udemy course in graphic design, and started experimenting with digital art.
Today, I am combining different passions. I sew textile sculptures (and occasionally quilts based on my own designs), I write stories about my dolls, I paint, and I create digital art. I am new to this country and to the neighborhood, but I have discovered that my art is a great way to connect with my neighbors and with the country in general. I am making some progress. One of my textile sculptures recently entered the collection of one of the biggest Ukrainian art museums. And who would have thought? My painting "Escape to Egypt" was shown as part of an exhibition at the Bode Museum in Berlin, one of the most well-known European art institutions. It is on display there until spring 2024. I still occasionally write something about art but combining art criticism and artistic practice becomes harder and harder. Knowing too much about art doesn't necessarily help to create my own pieces that's why unlearning is an important part of my current journey.
Many of my textile sculptures have already entered the collections of my neighbors and friends. I love seeing how my works make them a bit happier. Today, I continue to make artworks almost every day, and I am excited to explore where this path of connection with my passion, with new life, and with nature can lead.
I moved to the United States in 2020 in the middle of the pandemic. It was not the best time to start a new life, but I enjoyed the challenge. I had a super busy life before, traveling between continents for years, and never thought that my life could be put on hold in a day. The pandemic gave me an opportunity to rethink my life and priorities. I finally had the courage to admit openly what I had already secretly known for years: I was burned out and not satisfied with my career. All I wanted to do in this world was to make my own art.
It wasn't the first time I had this urge. When I was a kid, I was obsessed with art. My grandmother told me that at the age of three, I would wake up early in the morning and tell her, "All I want to do now is draw." But when I learned how to read, books became a bigger obsession than art. I forgot that I loved painting for many years and instead focused on studying philosophy, history, political science, and culture. After I graduated from university, I returned to art but in a completely different role. I started working at an art gallery, curating projects, and writing about other people's work. My grown-up life began. I lived among interesting people, was making big projects, I don't regret anything.
Around 2008, I had a huge urge to paint again. I thought that making art and going public about it would contradict my career as an art critic and curator who is supposed to judge other people's work. It's a silly prejudice, I know, but this idea had been rooted so deeply in my head that it took me more than ten years to overcome it. I worked with contemporary art and wanted to keep my personal art practice as far as possible from the world of my daily activity. I am also very deeply interested in spirituality of all sorts, which is why I started taking lessons in icon painting. Icon painting is a big tradition in the Orthodox world. It was almost lost in my country during the communist times, and when I started learning it, it still had a taste of rediscovering the roots and forgotten identities.
That initial interest towards religious painting shaped my further practice. Even when I moved from the traditional technique of egg tempera on wood to oil on canvas and to my own stories instead of the canonically approved iconography, I still continued exploring certain topics. For instance, you might notice that the Mother and Child motif is a recurring theme in my paintings. I don't have children, and at certain stages of my life, facing this situation was a big challenge. I used painting as a means to overcome pain and anxiety and also as a way to look for deeper meanings of motherhood.
In 2012, I moved to Moscow, Russia, to study film direction at a film school. However, when a revolution broke out in my country, Russia annexed Crimea and started a hybrid war in eastern Ukraine. I returned home and worked on several international exhibitions of contemporary Ukrainian art. I did not quit filmmaking. Just after the revolution, when our former president Viktor Yanukovych fled the country, I was leading a group of activists who were trying to prevent his luxurious mansion from being looted in the heat of the moment. I started documenting all these events, and that is how my first film, Who Is Without Sin?, came to life. After that, I worked on several short documentaries. Not all of them are finished but I hope to complete them one day.
I kept painting for years, but only my closest people were aware of this side of my life. In 2020, after I moved to the US, my husband took me to Joann Fabrics. I had a sudden idea to start sewing, and I made a small bear and then a larger mermaid. I fell in love with creating textile sculptures, and I also went public with my art for the first time in my life. I started posting it on social media and presenting myself as an artist. This was a huge breakthrough for me.
The Bay Area and sunset walks around Don Edwards bird preserve in Alviso were my main source of inspiration. I imagined magical creatures that lived in those swamps, and I started writing stories about each textile doll that I made. Later, when we moved to Los Gatos in the heart of the Santa Cruz Mountains, I discovered a whole new world of a redwood forest. Today, it is my main source of inspiration. I made several dolls who represent spirits inhabiting our forest, and I am planning to dedicate a whole project to this topic.
In 2022, I was learning how to use my Circuit Maker and had to learn some basics of working with SVG files. For that purpose, my husband suggested that I download Affinity Designer to my iPad. I took a Udemy course in graphic design, and started experimenting with digital art.
Today, I am combining different passions. I sew textile sculptures (and occasionally quilts based on my own designs), I write stories about my dolls, I paint, and I create digital art. I am new to this country and to the neighborhood, but I have discovered that my art is a great way to connect with my neighbors and with the country in general. I am making some progress. One of my textile sculptures recently entered the collection of one of the biggest Ukrainian art museums. And who would have thought? My painting "Escape to Egypt" was shown as part of an exhibition at the Bode Museum in Berlin, one of the most well-known European art institutions. It is on display there until spring 2024. I still occasionally write something about art but combining art criticism and artistic practice becomes harder and harder. Knowing too much about art doesn't necessarily help to create my own pieces that's why unlearning is an important part of my current journey.
Many of my textile sculptures have already entered the collections of my neighbors and friends. I love seeing how my works make them a bit happier. Today, I continue to make artworks almost every day, and I am excited to explore where this path of connection with my passion, with new life, and with nature can lead.