Elene sturua
Painting BA Hons
Edinburgh College of Art
Graduates: 2025
Specialisms: Painting
My location: Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Elene sturua
First Name: Elene
Last Name: sturua
University / College: Edinburgh College of Art
Course / Program: Painting BA Hons
Graduates: 2025
Specialisms: Painting
My Location: Edinburgh, United Kingdom
About
Elene Sturua is a visual artist from Tbilisi, Georgia. Her oil paintings explore the tensions between inner and external worlds, shaped by memory and the post-political realities of today. Growing up in Georgia, she became sensitive to how landscapes and built environments carry both personal and collective histories. Her work often examines the constructed nature of space, through perspective, picture plane, and framing, examining how these devices affect the way paintings are read.Drawing on literature, mythology, and theatre, she collapses temporal and spatial boundaries to create ambiguous encounters. Figures interrupt otherwise still environments, engaging the viewer’s gaze in ways that shift between passive observation and active confrontation. Suspended between realism and performance, her works reflect on asymmetries of visibility and power, while evoking memory and perception as unsettled states.
My oil paintings explore the tension between inner and external environments, set within spaces marked by change, and memory. Figures interrupt stillness within my landscapes. The gaze is central, allowing for the moment of encounter between the subject and the viewer to switch between passive observation and active confrontation. Through these onlooks, I examine asymmetries of power in acts of looking: who gets to observe, who is made visible, and what remains unseen. The colour pink signaling foolishness and vulnerability. This body of work examines how power, violence, and tenderness intersect, revealing instability as a condition embedded within the everyday.
Competitions
