Yelena Popova
Pile 1 & 2, 2022
Mosaic with Ceramic Tiles
Main Entrance, Mile End Hospital
Yelena Popova’s practice encompasses painting, textiles, video and installation—many of which include domestic objects. Her work explores ideas of balance, whether in politics, aesthetic or metaphysical, and our relationship with machines. She is influenced by Russian Constructivism, the 20th century art movement, as well as evolving industrialism.
Pile 1 and Pile 2 are abstract mosaics. Throughout the 20th century there was a rich tradition of public art murals, and passengers using the underground may make a connection to Eduardo Paolozzi’s Tottenham Court Road mosaics. While these artworks do not visually represent anything identifiable, they speak to the human activity that initially created them.
Popova started with piles of coloured tiles, both plain squares and offcuts. The borders of the mosaic show these standard tiles in their basic state but the mosaic centre, with its little shapes, elements and clusters, are snippets of artistic recycling in action.
Pile 1, 2022
Pile 2, 2022
About the artist
Yelena Popova was born in the USSR and lives and works in Nottingham. She studied at Moscow Art Theatre School (MHAT) before graduating from MA Painting at the Royal College of Art in 2011. Yelena has exhibited widely with shows at The Art House, Wakefield; Holden Gallery, Manchester; Nottingham Contemporary and Zabludowicz Collection, London. Her work is included in a number of collections including the Arts Council Collection, the RCA Collection and the Saatchi Collection.