about

Irina Rodnikoff is a multi-disciplinary artist currently working with installations, sculptures and paintings. She was born and raised in Ukraine, where she studied Journalism at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kiev. After immigrating to the United States, she received a BFA from the Brooklyn College of City University of NY, and an MFA with concentration in painting and sculpture at the same institution. She received the Serf Award in Art in 2019, the TOW International Research Award in 2019, the CUNY Shaw Award “Winner for Excellence in Painting” in 2015, Bernard Horlick Memorial Scholarship in Visual Arts and Art History Award in 2016, and MUSA International Art Space Woman Artist Award dedicated to Sofonisba Anguissola in 2018. Irina’s artworks are highly symbolic and expressive, and focus on the themes of life and death, transpersonal psychology, metaphysics, spirituality, and Zen philosophy. Her sculptural works break down the barrier between decorative and fine arts; they are symbolic, but not representational; functional, but not mundane. In oil and acrylic paintings, her experience of the world is reflected in use of color, which is natural in its simplicity, bright and contrasting – a celebration of self-determination. Irina’s goal is to create conceptual art that has the power to psychologically influence the viewer, draw his focus to specific philosophical and spiritual themes, and reveal to him other layers of perception and dimensions of being.
“The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.”