Remains of the Future

Mariia Vasylenko is a Ukrainian artist who creates painted objects on boards made from recycled wood.

In Mariia Vasylenko's artworks, the sacred and the everyday, myth and unpredictable reality constantly intersect. These objects exist not only within walls, they extend into public space.

The artist was born in 2001 in Kyiv, Ukraine. She attended Kyiv National Art School (2004–2013), Kyiv National College of Arts and Design (2016–2022), Kyiv Academy of Media Arts (2019–2020), and Private Academy of Realistic Arts (2019–2022). 

From 2020 to 2022, Mariia studied at the Mykhailo Boichuk Kyiv State Academy of Decorative Applied Arts and Design, receiving a BA degree in Monumental Art. Currently, the artist is studying at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.  

Mariia Vasylenko's paintings have been exhibited in numerous shows. Her recent exhibitions include "Temporarity" at Garazh Іpace in Kharkiv (2024), "Genesis" at Test Gallery in Barcelona (2024), "Anomalies" at Profcom Space in Kyiv (2023), "Disquiet" at Osobnyak Space in Kyiv (2022), among others. Moreover, her works were included in the Ukrainian Art Fair in London (2024) and the Dresden Art Fair in Dresden (2022). 

Currently, Mariia lives and works in Kyiv, Ukraine. She works on exhibition projects and takes part in various art programs.

Mariia Vasylenko's original paintings — or painted objects, as the artist herself describes them — encompass works of various formats created with egg tempera and emulsion on wood. The central theme of her work is an attempt to look beyond the veil of physical phenomena and, through this, to comprehend the processes unfolding within and around us.

UFDA has digitized several of Mariia's works, including "Cycle of Kali", "The Bag I Carry", "Remains of the Future", "Evolution of Venus", "Wild Horse Without a Head", and many more.

In Vasylenko's work, the sacred and the everyday, myth and unpredictable reality constantly converge. Her painted objects exist beyond the confines of walls — emerging into public space, sometimes as deliberately "senseless" glitches that disrupt familiar perception, and at other times as attempts to navigate the ruptures of civilization, war, technologization, and personal experience.

Vasylenko's practice draws on the sacred traditions of various cultures, particularly the art of icon painting, which offers an alternative way of seeing. Her visual language has taken shape at the intersection of working with color and the formal aspects of icon painting. Mariia uses egg tempera, a timeless, transparent, almost immaterial medium. She also pays special attention to the principle of reverse perspective, which functions like a spotlight: the vanishing point of the image lies not within the painting itself, but in the position of the viewer.

Maria also consciously rejects the standard rectangular format of a painting as a "window into the world". She creates her works on sheets of recycled wood, giving them a physical body. In doing so, the artist aims to bring the sacred and the fantastical elements of her work closer to the viewer. 

Deeply engaged with philosophy, Vasylenko explores how space and time are "given" to human perception and how images take shape in consciousness. Eschewing rigid narratives and explanations, she treats art as an open-ended process rather than a source of definitive answers — a space to be inhabited. Her images often emerge illogically, like phantoms or otherworldly beings seeking to reveal themselves and enter into dialogue.