PAINTINGS BY ELENA KALMAN
CATASTROPHE AND WHAT SURVIVES
The Museum of Russian Art (TMORA), Mezzanine Gallery July 18 – November 1, 2026
5500 Stevens Avenue, Minneapolis, MN 55419
The Museum of Russian Art (TMORA) presents Catastrophe and What Survives, a new exhibition of paintings by Elena Kalman. This body of work continues Kalman’s exploration of upheaval, resilience, and the fragile equilibrium between destruction and endurance. Her paintings—layered, textural, and emotionally charged—draw from personal experience, global conflict, and the persistent presence of nature as witness and healer.
Kalman’s practice merges architectural precision with expressive spontaneity. Torn paper, fabric, repurposed materials, and gestural paint application create surfaces that feel both wounded and alive. The works in Catastrophe and What Survives reflect the turbulence of recent years while offering a quiet insistence on continuity, memory, and the human capacity to rebuild.
This exhibition invites viewers to consider what remains after catastrophe, what persists, what transforms, and what refuses to disappear.
Artist Contact: elena@kalmandesign.com
Website: www.elenakalmanart.com
Featured Exhibition at iO
Where Are We Going?
Solo exhibition — March 2026
iO Arts Center presents a cross‑section of Kalman’s work, allowing viewers to trace the emotional and formal range of her practice. Upon entering the gallery, visitors encounter the large canvases of Where Are We Going, and Eternity where landscapes and imagined environments register the tension between rupture and continuity. Created during a period of war and global uncertainty, these works place scenes of disruption in direct dialogue with enduring elements—water, sky, and terrain.
The second floor offers a quieter counterpoint: smaller, contemplative pieces that emphasize reflection and wit, including selections from November Roads and the Accidental Paintings.
Alignment with the iO Arts Center Mission
Kalman’s work transforms the iO Arts Center into a space for introspection and collective reckoning. Her paintings invite viewers to confront contemporary contradictions while also affirming the resilience and beauty of the natural world. This dual commitment—to honest appraisal and to a humane, inclusive vision—resonates with the iO Arts Center’s founding principle of love of humanity as one.
Ukraine Defiant
Artist: Elena Kalman
Ukrainian-born artist Elena Kalman presents a series of paintings dedicated to the Ukrainian struggle in the current war against Putin’s aggression.
Kalman’s wartime landscapes are devoid of people; perspectives are skewed, explosions spill out from the confines of the paintings’ borders, images protrude off the surface in deep relief. The viewer is invited to imagine herself present inside each painting.
Most of the pieces in this series take their names from a poem Kalman composed:
Ukraine Defiant
Ukraine invaded, bloodied, trampled and burned
Her fields are plowed with bombs and sown with bones
Her mothers weep, her sky is overcast
She dreams of the future, and she dreams of the past
Her children torn away, uprooted, lost
She fights in spite of pain, in spite of cost
Her enemies predict defeat and doom
But she will win, will live again and bloom!
The devastation caused by war is at the heart of each painting, but where there is resistance – there is hope.
