Zhanna Kadyrova — Biography
Zhanna Kadyrova, born in 1981 in Brovary, Ukraine, is a Ukrainian artist working with sculpture, installation, performance and public art. She graduated from the sculpture department of the Taras Shevchenko State Art School in Kyiv and became known as a member of R.E.P. — Revolutionary Experimental Space, an artists’ collective that emerged in the aftermath of the Orange Revolution.
Kadyrova’s work moves between architecture, urban space, material history and social reality. She often uses everyday or found materials — ceramic tiles, concrete, asphalt, stone, glass and fragments of construction — transforming them into sculptures that are at once playful, sharp and politically charged. Her practice explores how materials carry memories: of cities, labour, ideology, violence, loss and survival.
She gained international recognition with projects such as Market, in which objects made of stone, ceramic tiles and concrete were sold as food at market stalls, and Second Hand, in which old tiles and architectural remnants were transformed into garment-like sculptures. In these works, Kadyrova plays with value, labour, consumption and the absurdity of the art market.
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, her work changed direction radically. From the Carpathian Mountains, she began the humanitarian project PALIANYTSIA, named after a traditional Ukrainian bread and a word that became a symbol of Ukrainian identity and resistance. The “loaves” made from river stones were shown worldwide, including in Italy, Germany, France, Japan, Norway, the United States, Austria, Sweden, India and Ukraine. The project brought together art, solidarity and emergency aid: proceeds from sales were used to support Ukrainian citizens and communities during wartime.
Since her return to Kyiv in June 2022, Kadyrova has created new work that responds directly to war, destruction and resilience. Her first major retrospective, Daily Bread, was presented at Kunstverein Hannover in 2023. In the same year, Flying Trajectories was shown at PinchukArtCentre in Kyiv. In 2024, she participated in From Ukraine: Dare to Dream, a collateral event of the 60th Venice Biennale, organised by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation and PinchukArtCentre. Her exhibition Unexpected at Galerie Rudolfinum in Prague was named by Frieze Magazine as one of the ten best exhibitions in Europe in 2024.
Kadyrova has received several major awards, including the Kazimir Malevich Artist Award in 2012, the Grand Prix of the Kyiv Sculpture Project, the PinchukArtCentre Special Prize in 2011, the PinchukArtCentre Main Prize in 2013 and the Special Prize – Future Generation Art Prize in 2014. In 2025, she received the Taras Shevchenko National Prize of Ukraine for visual art, becoming the first woman in twenty years to receive this distinction. That same year, she also won the Her Art Prize 2025, an international prize for women artists launched at the initiative of Marie Claire in partnership with Boucheron.
Her work is held in international collections, including Museum Voorlinden in the Netherlands, Uppsala Konstmuseum in Sweden, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Stavanger Kunstmuseum, Kunsthalle Praha, the Kontakt Collection – ERSTE Stiftung and several Ukrainian institutions. In 2026, Zhanna Kadyrova will represent Ukraine at the National Pavilion of the 61st Venice Biennale.
Kadyrova lives and works in Kyiv. Her oeuvre is a powerful example of how art can emerge from rubble, memory and urgency — not as decoration for history, but as material through which a country, a body and a future can be given form again.
Source note
Based on Zhanna Kadyrova’s official CV and website, Galleria Continua’s artist biography, documentation of PALIANYTSIA, and recent public information on her exhibitions, awards and participation in the Venice Biennale.
