--- title: Sasha Q description: Ukrainian artist exploring consciousness. url: 'https://www.artsume.com/a/sashaq' type: artist createdAt: '2026-09-17' updatedAt: '2026-09-24' disciplines: - Painting - Illustration - Digital Art - Muralism location: 'Toronto, ON, Canada' website: 'https://sashaq.art/' --- # Sasha Q *Ukrainian artist exploring consciousness. | Painting, Illustration, Digital Art, Muralism | Based in Toronto, ON, Canada* ## Artist Statement As a displaced person, my art practice has become my new home and a place of comfort. I'm exploring the intersection of consciousness and illusion through metamorphic works grounded in colour theory, reflecting on feelings of displacement shaped by the dramatic historical transformations of my homeland and the broader global shift into the digital age. ## About My name is Sasha Q (born Oleksandra Stepanenko), and I’m an artist from Kyiv, Ukraine, currently based in Toronto, Canada. Graduate of Mykhailo Boichuk Kyiv State Academy of Decorative-Applied Arts and Design. In February 2022, I was forced to flee my home, studio, and body of work due to the russian invasion - a rupture that profoundly shaped my creative path. ## Curriculum Vitae ### Education - **2011** - BFA, Mykhailo Boichuk Kyiv State Academy of Decorative-Applied Arts and Design, Kyiv, Ukraine ### Solo Exhibitions - **July 11, 2024** - *WORKFLOW X FINELINE.ART present Sasha Q solo show*, The Drake Hotel, Toronto, ON, Canada, Curated by Kris Lodu ### Group Exhibitions - **Mar. 26–Sept. 30, 2026** - Artist Project, Toronto, ON, Canada - **July 4, 2025–Sept. 6, 2026** - Toronto Outdoor Art Fair, Toronto, ON, Canada - **July 5–7, 2024** - Toronto Outdoor Art Fair, Toronto, ON, Canada - **May 1–5, 2024** - *GRADEX 109*, OCAD University, Toronto, ON, Canada - **2024** - *Art Intelligence: The Near Future of Art in Canada*, Gallery 1313, Toronto, ON, Canada - **July 14–16, 2023** - Toronto Outdoor Art Fair, Toronto, ON, Canada - **2023** - *A Nightmare on Roncesvalles 2*, Northern Contemporary Gallery, Toronto, ON, Canada ### Awards, Grants & Fellowships - **2024** - City of Toronto grant recipient for implementation of new media installation in one of Toronto History Museums under mentorship of multidisciplinary artist Yung Yemi, City of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada ## Portfolio ### Metamorphic Art Collection (2026) Metamorphic Art Collection. Started to develop in late 2023. Based on color theory. Acrylics and oil on canvas. --- ### Becoming (2026) *Oil on canvas* Dedicated to embracing the state of permanent change, instability, and the transformations that unfold. Life reshapes us. Circumstances will seek our fractures. Only the flows remain unbroken - yet they can wear down stone. Who are you becoming? --- ### Conflux (2026) *Acrylic on canvas* This painting emerges from a collaboration with the Ukrainian fashion brand ObjectX, known for crafting wearable, functional objects that echo a poetic dialogue between soul and body. The composition draws inspiration from the rhythmic geometry of the Carpathian mountains, which flows seamlessly into the brand’s structured forms. The rigid, monumental perception of the context echoes our totalitarian past with its brutalist aesthetics. The boundaries between foreground and background dissolve deliberately, emphasizing the equal significance of both realms. United, they form a singular entity, textured with echoes of our homeland's landscapes. Responsive to colored light and filters, this light-reactive piece shifts and transforms—an ever-evolving reflection of perception and place. --- ### Flow (2026) *Oil on canvas* There is no future and no past. Just a Flow that takes you to interesting places. --- ### Vicinity (2025) Some destinations are closer than they appear. --- ### Behind (2024) *Oil on canvas* --- ### Configurations (2024) *Acrylic on canvas* This painting is part of a collaboration with Ukrainian fashion brand Object X which creates wearable functional objects inspired by the metaphoric vision of soul and body. The textures of concrete and the interplay of modernist geometric forms that I associate with the urban landscape of my home city are deeply embedded in this work. The distinction between foreground and background in the painting is intentionally blurred, reflecting the equal significance of both elements. We are a unified entity, with textures that evoke the landscapes of our country of origin. This is a light-reactive artwork in which transformations are brought to life through the use of colored light or filters. --- ### Reminiscence (2024) *Oil on canvas* In this mini-cycle, I'm reflecting on my homesickness and searching for an art method that conveys an abstract feeling between dream and reality. The natural landscape one's person was raised in is what shapes a personality and travels in one's memory. Black Sea, endless prairies, and mountains are multi-exposured in my retrospections. Light reactive painting based on color theory. Sunflowers fields in red, sea in blue. --- ### X (2024) *Acrylic on canvas* This painting marks the beginning of my collaboration with Ukrainian fashion brand ObjectX - a partnership I was eager to bring to an international audience. Their military-inspired, functional aesthetic deeply aligns with my philosophy of resilience and transformation. Their wearable pieces are not just fashion, but metaphors - a dialogue between body and soul. In "X" there is no boundary between foreground and background; they flow into one another as one fluid existence. We are whole beings, textured like the landscapes of our homeland - shaped, terrific, scarred, but beautiful. Through this work, I continue to explore the nature of illusional through the darkness and color theory - each revealing subtle truths if you look closely enough. This is a light-reactive piece, one that transforms with colored light and filters - revealing its many faces. --- ### Reveal (2024) "Reveal" is part of an art collection that explores the intersection of art and science, where I have elevated my limited use of colour to a functionally and conceptually new level. This work reflects the duality of nature, which, at the fundamental quantum level, exists in two states simultaneously - in superposition. It is the viewer who ultimately reveals its definitions. Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, serving as proof that we can effect change in the world around us. --- ### Sheer (2023) *Oil on canvas* --- ### OW pt XVII (2023) *Oil on canvas* In this series I'm exploring the feeling of escapism and solitude, as well as the boundaries of the transcendental - knowledge that goes beyond sensory experience, beyond the bounds of space and time. --- ### OW pt XIII (2023) --- ### Salt of Black Sea (2023) *Oil on canvas* Canvas from the mini-cycle where I reminisce about key locations of my homeland, filtered through the prism of my subconscious. I let go of sorrow by reflecting on the metaphysical aspect of the events taking place in my native land. In this chapter salt crystals from the soil of a front-line city Soledar containing souls dive to the darkest depths of the Black Sea, back to the womb of the origin of life. Light reactive painting based on color theory, with encrypted features in a composition that can be deciphered in a certain illumination. A texture combination of velvet matte acrylic and glossy oil paints emphasizes the multi-surfaced nature of this artwork. --- ### Salt of Earth (2023) *Oil on canvas* According to the theory of panspermia, one of the theories of the origin of life - it was brought to Earth by meteors containing salt crystals with tiny droplets of water inside. Long millions of years of meteorite showers gave the earth reservoirs of water in which an incredible metamorphosis took place from inorganic life to organic, perhaps the only conscious life in the entire universe. And now there is a place in the universe where a reverse metamorphosis from organic to inorganic life occurs in colossal quantities. It is absorbed by the soil of Soledar city, the capital of the salt mines - NaCl - a mineral of the origin of life, sacred in humankind culture. This frontline city is a portal to other dimensions where hundreds of thousands of souls are reincarnated, closing the cycle of life. --- ### OW pt II (2021) *Acrylic on canvas* --- ### OW pt I (2021) In this series I'm exploring the feeling of escapism, solitude and anxiety, as well as the boundaries of the transcendental - knowledge that goes beyond sensory experience, beyond the bounds of space and time. ## Links - **Website:** https://sashaq.art/ - **instagram:** https://instagram.com/sasha__q