Mikena Kuzmienska

Mikena Kuzmienska is a traditional and contemporary artist working in acrylic paint and coloured pencil. She resides in Toronto, Ontario, where she produces realistic artwork with themes of florals, animals, and figurative pieces. She is currently enrolled at OCAD University working towards her BFA in drawing and painting. In addition to her studies, Mikena teaches children’s art classes at Messy Pants Inc (North York, ON).

Her work has been shown across the Greater Toronto Area, including Pancakes and Booze (Toronto, ON), The Toronto Art Crawl (Toronto, ON), and Next Generation Arts Fresh exhibition (Scarborough, ON). She also does commission work for clients including pet and family portraits, landscapes and florals.

To create her works, Mikena uses procreate and photoshop to collage and alter reference images into a new image. She then transfers the new reference onto canvas or paper to paint or draw. Mikena works very meticulously and slowly, paying attention to details and accurately portraying the subject matter in her work. For her paintings, Mikena works with multiple layers and glazing until reaching her final product. In her work, Kuzmienska uses aesthetics and personal intuition when brainstorming subject matter, and pushes to showcase natural beauty while being bright and bold with her choices in colour, style, and composition.

Recently, in works such as "Bioluminescence," Mikena has been exploring the natural world looking through the lense of oversaturation and fluorescence, striving to push the boundaries of natural reality through painting hyper-focused snapshots.

Mikena is currently open for commissions and has prints of her work available upon request. For more information, contact the artist.