Flora Yukhnovich has rapidly risen to renown for her lush, layered paintings that reimagine the rococo through the lens of abstraction. ‘It’s capturing what the sensation of looking at the painting is, rather than its details and what they might mean,’ she told Apollo in 2020, describing the process of synthesising historic pictures in order to create her own. For her exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford (until 14 January 2024), Yukhnovich has created a series of large canvases that draw from the Dutch and Flemish still lifes in the museum’s collection.
Where do you work?
My studio is in Bermondsey, London in a place called the Biscuit Factory. Every building has a name like Bourbon or Almond and relates to biscuits in some way, which I quite like. I have a studio at the top of the building with great skylights and windows all the way around – you can see across London. I love it.
How would you describe the atmosphere of your studio?
Because it’s so high up, it’s very peaceful. The atmosphere I try to create is one of meditation and thoughtfulness, I suppose, as I’m always painting alone in here. There’s an overwhelming silence in the space (except when it’s raining, which is very loud). I can see seagulls’ feet as they land on the pitched glass roof and hear them squeak as they slide down it, which always cheers me up.
Image: Flora Yukhnovich, I Might Have Known it Would Be Red, 2022
78 3/4 x 68 7/8 in
© Flora Yukhnovich
Courtesy the artist and Victoria Miro
