artists
Ustina Yakovleva
Ustina Yakovleva (b. 1987, Moscow, Russia) is a Russian contemporary visual artist based in Bali, Indonesia, whose practice engages deeply with traditional craft, nature, and meditative processes. She works across embroidery, graphic arts, and mixed-media installations, combining meticulous manual labor with contemplative exploration. Yakovleva earned degrees from Moscow Pedagogical State University and the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in Moscow, Russia.
Ustina Yakovleva’s artistic inquiry is centered on the relationship between time, craft, and cultural memory. She draws inspiration from the traditions of Northern Russian peoples, exploring slow, meditative processes rooted in both pagan ritual and the decorative arts. Through embroidery, drawing, and object-making, Yakovleva reactivates ancient techniques within contemporary frameworks, reflecting on the passage of time and the persistence of cultural knowledge. Her practice often emerges without preliminary sketches, allowing compositions to evolve organically, with individual elements such as beads, strokes, and lines coalescing into complex, cohesive structures that resemble living organisms.
Nature, ritual, and meticulous handcraft form the core of Yakovleva’s practice. Her creatives process navigates cycles of growth, transformation, and temporal layering, offering a contemplative engagement with materials and process. Through
Ustina Yakovleva’s artistic inquiry is centered on the relationship between time, craft, and cultural memory. She draws inspiration from the traditions of Northern Russian peoples, exploring slow, meditative processes rooted in both pagan ritual and the decorative arts. Through embroidery, drawing, and object-making, Yakovleva reactivates ancient techniques within contemporary frameworks, reflecting on the passage of time and the persistence of cultural knowledge. Her practice often emerges without preliminary sketches, allowing compositions to evolve organically, with individual elements such as beads, strokes, and lines coalescing into complex, cohesive structures that resemble living organisms.
Nature, ritual, and meticulous handcraft form the core of Yakovleva’s practice. Her creatives process navigates cycles of growth, transformation, and temporal layering, offering a contemplative engagement with materials and process. Through
repetition and accumulation, her drawings and installations evoke rhythm, continuity, and the quiet power of sustained labor. Yakovleva bridges historical craft and contemporary expression, transforming seemingly ordinary materials into carriers of memory, narrative, and meditative experience.
Through her contemplative and process-oriented practice, she establishes a visual language in which craft, cultural memory, and natural phenomena intersect, offering viewers a space for reflection and inviting them to witness the evolution of form and time, and to consider the enduring resonance of tradition within contemporary artistic practice.
Yakovleva has participated in multiple solo exhibitions at prominent museums, institutions, and curatorial projects across Russia (Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Arkhangelsk, Vladivostok, Vyksa, Perm) and internationally (Basel, Bern, Berlin, Dubai). Yakovleva has also been a resident artist at Gridchin Hall, the National Center for Contemporary Art in Kronstadt, Zarya Residency in Vladivostok, Vyksa AiR, PROGR in Bern, and the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art residencies. She received the STRABAG Young Artists Award in Vienna (2014) and the AES+F Artist Residency Award in New York (2020). Her work is held in private collections in Russia, the UK, France, Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2025
• Tales In Threads And Colors: Bag Ladies — Linkan Palenewen & Ustina Yakovleva, Blue Monster Gallery, Indonesia
2024
• To Weather The Rain — Inna Grishechkina & Ustina Yakovleva, Sika Gallery, Indonesia
2022
• The Storyteller — Sylvia Javén & Ustina Yakovleva, Anna Nova Gallery, Russia
2021
• When Shades Overlap — Daniil Antropov & Ustina Yakovleva, Art Design Human Studio, Russia
• Those Who Are Not… — Ustina Yakovleva, Belomor Patterns Factory, Russia
• Deutschland Express Virtual Festival — Various & Gould & Ustina Yakovleva, Online
• In the Landscape's Shadow — Vladimir Chernyshev & Ustina Yakovleva, Artwin Gallery, Russia
2019
• Porato Basko — Ulyana Podkorytova & Ustina Yakovleva, Art Museum of Arctic Exploration, Russia
• Russian Witches — Alina Glazoun, Lyudmila Baronina & Ustina Yakovleva, Centrepoint Artwall, Switzerland
• One-Piece Exhibition — Ustina Yakovleva, Between Windows Space, Russia
2018
• Conversion — German Lavrovsky & Ustina Yakovleva, Dreiviertel Art Space, Switzerland
• Solo Show — Ustina Yakovleva, Centrepoint Artwall, Switzerland
• Experiments ShShSh: Synchronisation 2 — Daria Neretina, Maria Kechaeva & Ustina Yakovleva, CCI Fabrika, Russia
• Solo Show — Ustina Yakovleva, Vyksa Art Residence, Russia
• Temporal Touch — Ustina Yakovleva, Anna Nova Gallery, Russia
2017
• Ambience — Andrey Dmitrenko & Ustina Yakovleva, Zarya Center for Contemporary Art, Russia
• Synchronisation — Maria Kechaeva & Ustina Yakovleva, Moscow, Russia
2016
• Occupation — Ustina Yakovleva, Agora Collective, Germany
• Morphologien des Wandels — Ustina Yakovleva, Kabinett Auktion & Antiquitäten GmbH, Germany
• Spine of Twilight Lady — Ilya Romanov & Ustina Yakovleva, Kultproekt Gallery, Russia
2012
• Inner Surface — Ustina Yakovleva, Triumph Gallery, Russia
2011
• Inversion — Ustina Yakovleva, AA Collections / Knoll Gallery, Austria
• Monochrom — Ustina Yakovleva, Rodnya Studio, Russia
2010
• Vacuum — Ustina Yakovleva, Green Art Gallery, Russia
• Ust-Tsilma, Start — Ustina Yakovleva, Winzavod, Russia
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025
• Editions Art & Design Fair — Dubai Design Week, RARARES Gallery, Dubai, UAE
• Assemblage, Object, Installation — The State Russian Museum, Marble Palace, Saint Petersburg, Russia
• Once Upon a Time: School of Russian Fairy Tales — CCA Winzavod, Moscow, Russia
• Fragility — Arsenal, Volgo-Vyatsky Branch of Pushkin State Museum, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
2024
• Research Institute Archive — Renovation, CCA Winzavod, Moscow, Russia
• Transition Space — Millennium Space, Yaroslavl, Russia
• The Threads — Ruarts Foundation, Moscow, Russia
2023
• Metamorphosis — Seneca House, Moscow, Russia
2022
• NE ON x Artwin Gallery — Oktava Art Space, Tula, Russia
• Creation of the World — Choice of Pierre-Christian Brochet, Moscow, Russia
• The Secret Garden VIVAIO — Art Design Human Studio, Moscow, Russia
• On Top of the Crystal Mountain — Excelsior Studios, London, UK
• For All to See — Havremagasinet, Boden, Sweden
• Sedan Reste Jag Mig — Cable Factory, Helsinki, Finland
2021
• The Raw and the Cooked — Russian Museum of Ethnography, Saint Petersburg, Russia
• The First Northern Biennale “New Discovery of the North” — National Gallery of Komi, Syktyvkar, Russia
• Archstoyanie Festival — Nikola-Lenivets Art Park, Kaluga Region, Russia
• Living Matter — New Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia
• What Do Mermaids Sing About — Art-Etage, Vladivostok, Russia
• It Will Work if You Close Your Eyes — ART4 Museum, Moscow, Russia
2020
• The Cell — The State Darwin Museum, Moscow, Russia
2019
• 0.0.0.0 — Orekhov Gallery, Moscow, Russia
• Natura Sintetica — Ural Vision Gallery, Ekaterinburg, Russia
• 5th Ural Industrial Biennale: Immortality — Ural Optical and Mechanical Plant, Ekaterinburg, Russia
• Everything Is Not What It Seems — Special project, 5th Ural Biennale, Slovtsov Museum Complex, Tyumen, Russia
• BURO. New Cool — Depo, Moscow, Russia
• Fringe Gallery — Valo, Arktikum, Rovaniemi, Finland
2018
• Arctic Art Forum — Youth House of Arkhangelsk Region, Arkhangelsk, Russia
• Everything Is Not What It Seems to Be — Bazhov-Fest, Ural NCCA, Ekaterinburg, Russia
• Textile — New Wing of Gogol House, Moscow, Russia
• Museum of Material Culture — Kotelnicheskaya Embankment Building, Moscow, Russia
2017
• HAHAHAMOSCOW — ART4 Museum, Moscow, Russia
• Hooray! Sculpture! — CEH Manege, Saint Petersburg, Russia
• Structures. Fractals — Kultproekt Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2016
• Nominibus trivialibus, synonimis selectis — Parallel program of 5th Moscow Biennale for Young Art, MGU Botanical Garden, Moscow, Russia
2015
• ArtistsKids — Gallery A3, Moscow, Russia
• Pierre Brochet’s Puzzle — Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow, Russia
• Urbi et Orbi — Special project of 6th Moscow Biennale, RGGU / Pushkin Museum Department, Moscow, Russia
• The Sculptures We Do Not See — CEH Manege, Moscow, Russia
• Anonymous Drawings — Berlin, Germany / Rome, Italy / Braunschweig, Germany
2014
• Generation START — Manifesta 10 Parallel Event, Kadet Korpus, Saint Petersburg, Russia
• Detective — Moscow Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia
2013
• I’d Rather Not Be Painting — Agency Art Ru, Moscow, Russia
• Night of the Museums: Magpies, Meeting the Heavenly Emperor — MOSHAOS, Moscow, Russia
2012
• Moscow: Architecture of the Future — Schusev Museum of Architecture, Moscow, Russia
• We Art Weekend #1 / #2 — Garage Gallery, Nikolina Gora, Russia
• Price — III Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, Agency Art Ru, Moscow, Russia
• Russian Renaissance — Brot Kunsthalle, Vienna, Austria
2011
• No Translation — International Culture Project Art-Residence, Special Project of IV Moscow Biennale, Moscow, Russia
• Russian Landscape — Guelman Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2010
• Do Not Disturb — NAUKA 254; Intimate Capital; Rare Species — CCI Fabrika, Moscow, Russia (projects within 2nd Moscow Biennale for Young Art)
2009
• No Translations No. 1; Fresco Part 1; Thirty-Six Friends of Cloud; BOZAR: Art at the Household Level; Graphics; Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood — ART Raum, Moscow, Russia
• Can’t Take It Anymore — Voronezh Centre for Contemporary Art, Voronezh, Russia
• Save As — Armyansky Pereulok 13, Moscow, Russia
• Art After the End of History — Central House of Artists, Moscow, Russia
• Let Me Think — Special Project of the III Moscow Biennale, Red October Factory, Moscow, Russia
2007
• Institute of Smile — Andrey Bartenev, Moscow Illustration Festival, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow, Russia
RESIDENCIES
2024
• Hideout Residency — Saint Petersburg, Russia
2023
• Devfto Printmaking Institute — Ubud, Indonesia
2022
• Ria Keburia Residency — Georgia
• CCA Andratx — Mallorca, Spain
2021
• Maryin Dom — Arkhangelsk Region, Russia
2020
• ISCP Residency — New York, USA
• NCCA Residency — Kronstadt, Leningrad Region, Russia
2019
• Garage Residency — Moscow, Russia
2018
• PROGR Residency — Bern, Switzerland
• Vyksa AiR — Nizhny Novgorod Region, Russia
2017
• Zarya Residency — Vladivostok, Russia
2015
• NCCA Residency — Kronstadt, Leningrad Region, Russia
2014
• Gridchinhall Residency — Moscow Region, Russia
Through her contemplative and process-oriented practice, she establishes a visual language in which craft, cultural memory, and natural phenomena intersect, offering viewers a space for reflection and inviting them to witness the evolution of form and time, and to consider the enduring resonance of tradition within contemporary artistic practice.
Yakovleva has participated in multiple solo exhibitions at prominent museums, institutions, and curatorial projects across Russia (Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Arkhangelsk, Vladivostok, Vyksa, Perm) and internationally (Basel, Bern, Berlin, Dubai). Yakovleva has also been a resident artist at Gridchin Hall, the National Center for Contemporary Art in Kronstadt, Zarya Residency in Vladivostok, Vyksa AiR, PROGR in Bern, and the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art residencies. She received the STRABAG Young Artists Award in Vienna (2014) and the AES+F Artist Residency Award in New York (2020). Her work is held in private collections in Russia, the UK, France, Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2025
• Tales In Threads And Colors: Bag Ladies — Linkan Palenewen & Ustina Yakovleva, Blue Monster Gallery, Indonesia
2024
• To Weather The Rain — Inna Grishechkina & Ustina Yakovleva, Sika Gallery, Indonesia
2022
• The Storyteller — Sylvia Javén & Ustina Yakovleva, Anna Nova Gallery, Russia
2021
• When Shades Overlap — Daniil Antropov & Ustina Yakovleva, Art Design Human Studio, Russia
• Those Who Are Not… — Ustina Yakovleva, Belomor Patterns Factory, Russia
• Deutschland Express Virtual Festival — Various & Gould & Ustina Yakovleva, Online
• In the Landscape's Shadow — Vladimir Chernyshev & Ustina Yakovleva, Artwin Gallery, Russia
2019
• Porato Basko — Ulyana Podkorytova & Ustina Yakovleva, Art Museum of Arctic Exploration, Russia
• Russian Witches — Alina Glazoun, Lyudmila Baronina & Ustina Yakovleva, Centrepoint Artwall, Switzerland
• One-Piece Exhibition — Ustina Yakovleva, Between Windows Space, Russia
2018
• Conversion — German Lavrovsky & Ustina Yakovleva, Dreiviertel Art Space, Switzerland
• Solo Show — Ustina Yakovleva, Centrepoint Artwall, Switzerland
• Experiments ShShSh: Synchronisation 2 — Daria Neretina, Maria Kechaeva & Ustina Yakovleva, CCI Fabrika, Russia
• Solo Show — Ustina Yakovleva, Vyksa Art Residence, Russia
• Temporal Touch — Ustina Yakovleva, Anna Nova Gallery, Russia
2017
• Ambience — Andrey Dmitrenko & Ustina Yakovleva, Zarya Center for Contemporary Art, Russia
• Synchronisation — Maria Kechaeva & Ustina Yakovleva, Moscow, Russia
2016
• Occupation — Ustina Yakovleva, Agora Collective, Germany
• Morphologien des Wandels — Ustina Yakovleva, Kabinett Auktion & Antiquitäten GmbH, Germany
• Spine of Twilight Lady — Ilya Romanov & Ustina Yakovleva, Kultproekt Gallery, Russia
2012
• Inner Surface — Ustina Yakovleva, Triumph Gallery, Russia
2011
• Inversion — Ustina Yakovleva, AA Collections / Knoll Gallery, Austria
• Monochrom — Ustina Yakovleva, Rodnya Studio, Russia
2010
• Vacuum — Ustina Yakovleva, Green Art Gallery, Russia
• Ust-Tsilma, Start — Ustina Yakovleva, Winzavod, Russia
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025
• Editions Art & Design Fair — Dubai Design Week, RARARES Gallery, Dubai, UAE
• Assemblage, Object, Installation — The State Russian Museum, Marble Palace, Saint Petersburg, Russia
• Once Upon a Time: School of Russian Fairy Tales — CCA Winzavod, Moscow, Russia
• Fragility — Arsenal, Volgo-Vyatsky Branch of Pushkin State Museum, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
2024
• Research Institute Archive — Renovation, CCA Winzavod, Moscow, Russia
• Transition Space — Millennium Space, Yaroslavl, Russia
• The Threads — Ruarts Foundation, Moscow, Russia
2023
• Metamorphosis — Seneca House, Moscow, Russia
2022
• NE ON x Artwin Gallery — Oktava Art Space, Tula, Russia
• Creation of the World — Choice of Pierre-Christian Brochet, Moscow, Russia
• The Secret Garden VIVAIO — Art Design Human Studio, Moscow, Russia
• On Top of the Crystal Mountain — Excelsior Studios, London, UK
• For All to See — Havremagasinet, Boden, Sweden
• Sedan Reste Jag Mig — Cable Factory, Helsinki, Finland
2021
• The Raw and the Cooked — Russian Museum of Ethnography, Saint Petersburg, Russia
• The First Northern Biennale “New Discovery of the North” — National Gallery of Komi, Syktyvkar, Russia
• Archstoyanie Festival — Nikola-Lenivets Art Park, Kaluga Region, Russia
• Living Matter — New Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia
• What Do Mermaids Sing About — Art-Etage, Vladivostok, Russia
• It Will Work if You Close Your Eyes — ART4 Museum, Moscow, Russia
2020
• The Cell — The State Darwin Museum, Moscow, Russia
2019
• 0.0.0.0 — Orekhov Gallery, Moscow, Russia
• Natura Sintetica — Ural Vision Gallery, Ekaterinburg, Russia
• 5th Ural Industrial Biennale: Immortality — Ural Optical and Mechanical Plant, Ekaterinburg, Russia
• Everything Is Not What It Seems — Special project, 5th Ural Biennale, Slovtsov Museum Complex, Tyumen, Russia
• BURO. New Cool — Depo, Moscow, Russia
• Fringe Gallery — Valo, Arktikum, Rovaniemi, Finland
2018
• Arctic Art Forum — Youth House of Arkhangelsk Region, Arkhangelsk, Russia
• Everything Is Not What It Seems to Be — Bazhov-Fest, Ural NCCA, Ekaterinburg, Russia
• Textile — New Wing of Gogol House, Moscow, Russia
• Museum of Material Culture — Kotelnicheskaya Embankment Building, Moscow, Russia
2017
• HAHAHAMOSCOW — ART4 Museum, Moscow, Russia
• Hooray! Sculpture! — CEH Manege, Saint Petersburg, Russia
• Structures. Fractals — Kultproekt Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2016
• Nominibus trivialibus, synonimis selectis — Parallel program of 5th Moscow Biennale for Young Art, MGU Botanical Garden, Moscow, Russia
2015
• ArtistsKids — Gallery A3, Moscow, Russia
• Pierre Brochet’s Puzzle — Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow, Russia
• Urbi et Orbi — Special project of 6th Moscow Biennale, RGGU / Pushkin Museum Department, Moscow, Russia
• The Sculptures We Do Not See — CEH Manege, Moscow, Russia
• Anonymous Drawings — Berlin, Germany / Rome, Italy / Braunschweig, Germany
2014
• Generation START — Manifesta 10 Parallel Event, Kadet Korpus, Saint Petersburg, Russia
• Detective — Moscow Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia
2013
• I’d Rather Not Be Painting — Agency Art Ru, Moscow, Russia
• Night of the Museums: Magpies, Meeting the Heavenly Emperor — MOSHAOS, Moscow, Russia
2012
• Moscow: Architecture of the Future — Schusev Museum of Architecture, Moscow, Russia
• We Art Weekend #1 / #2 — Garage Gallery, Nikolina Gora, Russia
• Price — III Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, Agency Art Ru, Moscow, Russia
• Russian Renaissance — Brot Kunsthalle, Vienna, Austria
2011
• No Translation — International Culture Project Art-Residence, Special Project of IV Moscow Biennale, Moscow, Russia
• Russian Landscape — Guelman Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2010
• Do Not Disturb — NAUKA 254; Intimate Capital; Rare Species — CCI Fabrika, Moscow, Russia (projects within 2nd Moscow Biennale for Young Art)
2009
• No Translations No. 1; Fresco Part 1; Thirty-Six Friends of Cloud; BOZAR: Art at the Household Level; Graphics; Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood — ART Raum, Moscow, Russia
• Can’t Take It Anymore — Voronezh Centre for Contemporary Art, Voronezh, Russia
• Save As — Armyansky Pereulok 13, Moscow, Russia
• Art After the End of History — Central House of Artists, Moscow, Russia
• Let Me Think — Special Project of the III Moscow Biennale, Red October Factory, Moscow, Russia
2007
• Institute of Smile — Andrey Bartenev, Moscow Illustration Festival, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow, Russia
RESIDENCIES
2024
• Hideout Residency — Saint Petersburg, Russia
2023
• Devfto Printmaking Institute — Ubud, Indonesia
2022
• Ria Keburia Residency — Georgia
• CCA Andratx — Mallorca, Spain
2021
• Maryin Dom — Arkhangelsk Region, Russia
2020
• ISCP Residency — New York, USA
• NCCA Residency — Kronstadt, Leningrad Region, Russia
2019
• Garage Residency — Moscow, Russia
2018
• PROGR Residency — Bern, Switzerland
• Vyksa AiR — Nizhny Novgorod Region, Russia
2017
• Zarya Residency — Vladivostok, Russia
2015
• NCCA Residency — Kronstadt, Leningrad Region, Russia
2014
• Gridchinhall Residency — Moscow Region, Russia
Artist's works