Liza Petrova
Liza Petrova (b. 1993, Russia) is a Belgrade-based figurative artist working with painting in mixed media, combining traditional oil techniques with innovative materials such as alcohol ink on plastic. In her work, she explores the emotional and social landscapes of a rapidly changing world, drawing on her background as an architect and former urban planner (Moscow Architectural Institute, Bachelor’s and Specialist degrees in Architecture, 2010–2016).
Her recent exhibitions include the duo show Hic Fuimus with Filip Savcović at Woonder studio, Belgrade
(2025), the duo exhibition The invitation with Ekaterina Kushnareva at Gradska galerija, Belgrade (2024), the
virtual group exhibition Contrasts at Royal Blue Gallery (2023), and the solo exhibition Without at Art-aquarium,
Yerevan (2022). In 2022 she was listed in the Top 10 of Art Vue Foundation’s yearly prize competition in Brussels, and in 2025 she joined the GetArtFit Art Project online residency, a 3-month programme based on a
European MA curriculum.
Artist statement
My work examines how the language of contemporary art interacts with and reshapes traditional subjects and materials. I work in mixed media with painting and graphic. My main technique is a combination of alcohol ink and oil on plastic – a dialogue between tradition and experimentation, and a recognition that nature is irreversibly altered by plastic. Within this material field, I combine figurative forms and abstraction.
Through symbolic, archetypal imagery, I explore how personal inner mythology reflects broader social and
historical context. My artistic method consists of constant experiments with mixed techniques and new
materials, but unified ideas of color, composition, and tension of the moment, the internal struggle of the soul
within the reality. Creating for me is a way to gaze into the subject, the properties of material, and the questions
of contemporary art itself.
I am deeply interested in the plasticity of the painting surface: how it can bend and fold to extend the
picture plane into physical space. I look for ways for a painting to escape flatness not through relief, which
relies on material thickness, but through the possible architecture of the narrative surface. My background in
architecture informs this curiosity for structure and depth. I also use architectural graphics as part of my visual
language. It reflects my desire to draw on the full expressive range offered by the diverse heritage of vast
culture of paint, combining painterly abstraction – often created with a palette knife to highlight the materiality
of paint – and a graphic, symbolic language of lines and marks. The form of the artwork and its content are
inseparable and interdependent, each shaping and transforming the other.
Continuity and the emergence of the new from the old are central to how I perceive the world. My work
unfolds in the dialogue between tradition and modernity, where the past informs and transforms the present,
showing how images migrate and shift across time, reflecting changes in human society. This is why I work
with classic subjects such as the portrait, the nude, or the figure in a landscape: timeless and ever-evolving,
they create a conversation between artists throughout history.
I see my art as a chronicle of my time – an attempt to capture the emotional texture of a rapidly
changing world. I study art by the means of art itself. I aim to free materials from the prejudices and habitual
contexts attached to them. For example, alcohol ink is both a contemporary material and one that recalls the
ancient practices of ink drawing, yet today it is largely perceived through the lens of hobby kits. I seek to
support the ongoing conversation about the possibilities of painting within contemporary art.
