About Flora Yukhnovich
Born in 1990 in Norwich, UK, Flora Yukhnovich developed her characteristic painting language while studying at City and Guilds of London Art School, where she completed her MA in fine art in 2017. She also studied portraiture at the Heatherley School of Fine Art in London. Yukhnovich’s art boldly explores materiality and process as vehicles for meaning, with cascading and swirling forms that evoke rhythm and energy, flowing between representation and abstraction. Her immersive paintings splice historic styles, from French rococo and Italian baroque to abstract expressionism, with references drawn from contemporary films, music, literature, and consumer culture. Through her work, Yukhnovich addresses dynamics of power inherent in received readings of art-historical subjects and their associated hierarchies. She questions notions of femininity and gender that are hard-wired into the aesthetic language of color and form.
Yukhnovich received the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Award in 2013 and 2016. She has participated in group and solo exhibitions worldwide. Her work is included in many collections, including the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC; the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; the Roberts Institute of Art, London; and the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. She lives and works in London.
About Eleanor Nairne
Eleanor Nairne is the Keith L. and Katherine Sachs Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art and department head, modern and contemporary art, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Previously, she was the senior curator at Barbican Art Gallery, London, where her exhibitions included Basquiat: Boom for Real (2017), Lee Krasner: Living Colour (2019), Jean Dubuffet: Brutal Beauty (2021), Soheila Sokhanvari: Rebel Rebel (2022), Alice Neel: Hot Off The Griddle (2023), and Julianknxx: Chorus in Rememory of Flight (2023–24). She also curated Erotic Abstraction: Eva Hesse / Hannah Wilke (2021) at Acquavella Galleries in New York. From 2011 to 2015, she was curator of the Artangel Collection at Tate, where she organized more than thirty exhibitions and displays across the UK. A regular catalogue contributor for institutions such as the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Louisiana Museum in Denmark, she has written essays and reviews for the Art Newspaper, frieze, London Review of Books, and the New York Times, among others.
Artists in Conversation
Join us for lively and inspiring conversations with some of today’s most notable artists. “Artists in Conversation” brings together curators and artists to discuss artistic practices and insights into their work.
This program is presented through the generosity of the Terry F. Green 1969 Fund for British Art and Culture.
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Flora Yukhnovich, photo by Kasia Bobula
