Olena Kurzel was born in 2000 in Pivdennoukraiinsk, Mykolaiv region, Ukraine.

From 2012 to 2019, she studied painting at the Taras Shevchenko State Art School in Kyiv. She later graduated in 2023 from the National Academy of Visual Arts and Architecture with a degree in easel painting.

Her artistic practice spans painting, embroidery, sculpture, video, photography, and installation. Kurzel’s work explores the concepts of forgetting, loneliness, self-identification, and the reconstruction of forgotten images.

She has participated in numerous exhibitions and projects, including:

• DIA Kinets at Tsehla Gallery, Graz, Austria (2024);
• MATTER MATTERS. Ukrainian Art Textile at Ukrainian House, Kyiv, Ukraine (2024);
• Why am I here? at SPLAV, Kyiv, Ukraine (2024);
• What does it mean to dream about water? at Asortymentna Kimnata, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine (2023);
• Periphery of Peace at DIM Gallery, Warsaw, Poland (2023);
• Individual Variability at the Modern Art Research Institute, Kyiv, Ukraine (2023);
• When Storms Reveal Silence, an online project with Gallery Kunstquartier Bethanien, Berlin, Germany, supported by the Eastern Partnership Program of the German Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2023);
• Merging the Versions: Unveiling Traces in Vienna, Austria (2023);
• Between You and Us: Translation Attempt in Chemnitz, Germany (2023);
• Forms of Presence at Mystetskyi Arsenal, Kyiv, Ukraine (2023);
• What Can Be Lost, What Can Be Saved at the "Near" Festival in Odesa, Ukraine (2023);
• Stay, part of the NULLA project, supported by Rhizom Gallery, Graz, Austria (2023).

Olena Kurzel currently lives and works in Kyiv, Ukraine.