Cacti -III: Cheerful Botanical Still Life with Blooming Cacti, 2025

Olena Prykhodko  

Olena Prykhodko is a Ukrainian contemporary figurative painter based in Hanover, Germany. After building a successful career in another professional field, she devoted herself to painting, developing an independent artistic practice centered on the relationship between nature, urban life, and emotional well-being.

In 2025, her work was presented internationally in Switzerland, Estonia, and Germany. Over the past two years, her paintings have been acquired by collectors in Germany, France, Estonia, Latvia, and Ukraine.

Olena's work explores biophilic connections between people and nature within contemporary urban environments. Through still lifes, landscapes, city views, flowering gardens, terraces, and her ongoing Cacti Are Everywhere series, she examines how natural forms can restore balance, resilience, and a sense of refuge in a rapidly changing world.

Working primarily with acrylic and oil on cotton and linen canvas, she creates vibrant compositions defined by luminous color, simplified forms, and an emotionally direct visual language. Rather than documenting reality, she transforms familiar subjects into symbols of fragility, renewal, and hope.

The experience of displacement, global uncertainty, and environmental concerns forms an important backdrop to her practice. Her paintings quietly ask what kind of future people choose to cultivate: one connected to nature, care, and beauty, or one shaped by conflict and destruction.

At the center of Olena's artwork is a belief that art can offer emotional shelter. Through color, light, and the presence of living forms, she creates spaces that encourage reflection, inner balance, and a renewed appreciation for the natural world.