Alina Eydel Biography

Born in Kiev, Ukraine in 1989, Alina and her parents emigrated to the U.S. in 1992, escaping the dangerous remnants of the Chernobyl disaster. For years, they struggled as immigrants just to get by, but always supported Alina’s creativity. Within the first decade of her career, Ms. Eydel has already achieved significant recognition as an artist and has sold over $2 million worth of her artwork. Her paintings range in price from $2,000 to $40,000. She has many goals to further her stature as an artist—one of those is to start a line of “wearable art,” such as jewellery and couture gowns.

Alina Eydel is one of the most unique young artists of our time. Not only does she stand out with her original and fervently creative ideas, Eydel also invented a unique technique, which she calls “Mosaic on Canvas.” Rather than using traditional mosaics, she gives her figurative, acrylic-on-canvas paintings a modern and unique twist, incorporating precious and semi-precious materials, which already imply treasure in themselves, and gluing and varnishing glass beads, Swarovsky crystals, fresh-water pearls, corals, and turquoise. The result is spectacular. Each painting shimmers like a sea of gemstones.

“Mosaic on canvas” evolved from the customary acrylic paintings with which she engaged herself as a child; however, as her concept developed, it required this particular mixed media approach. The unexpected textures that Eydel uses in her paintings add an ethereal sparkle, transforming the works into painted pieces of jewellery. Accordingly, Eydel calls her pieces “jewellery for walls.” Such a multidimensionality of texture is intrinsically surreal; each piece is both a painting and jewellery at once. Each piece is also a painting and a mosaic at once. Eydel’s texture game and the idea that something can be two things at once corresponds to her often surrealistic ideas, in which a dress or a hand or a torso or a flower is not just what it is, but also a symbol for something else entirely. Eydel loves a symbiosis of contrasting ideas. One of her strongest inspirations flows from the intrinsic contrast of the strength and fragility of female beauty. For instance, in the series of paintings called “Precious,” she expresses her visions of harmony, health and the preciousness of the human body within her paintings by transforming the torso into a metaphor for treasure. She also uses semi-precious materials to suggest the body as a priceless vessel.

“I create surrealistic mixed media paintings that are metaphors of my experiences and inspirations; my worldview is filtered through my feminine perception and that resonates with others, especially women. My pieces often carry multiple meanings and often reference my favorite artists and moments in art history, from Russian icons to Rembrandt to Dalí to Damien Hirst. My artwork also continues the legacy of Erté, but through my unique fantasies, designs, and mosaic technique, and is focused more on being artwork than costume design. 

My latest series of paintings also combines personally significant iconography with widely understood symbols, such as the heart, dollar sign, or yin-yang. The repetition of the symbols has a trance-inducing, mantra-like quality. I use symbols as a representation of my hopes, aspirations, and experiences—love symbols come from my experience of being in love, while prosperity symbols stem from my family’s experience of living as impoverished immigrants and striving for years for a better life. While my artworks are somewhat self-portraits, often filled with personal symbolism, the emotions they evoke are nonetheless relatable to the viewer.

I am passionate about the masterful execution of my paintings as well as the execution of the mixed media surfaces. My travels to Venice and Istanbul inspired the intricate glass bead mosaic. I adopted the ancient Byzantine mosaic technique and interpreted it in a contemporary way, with glass beads instead of tesserae. Each bead of my intricate mosaic represents an atom of which all matter—and all of life—is made up. Each bead is a molecule of my daily life—people, situations, conversations, etc.—incorporated with a surrealistic expression of my various inspirations. 

Inspired by Damien Hirst, I started using butterfly wings as a fascinating new medium. The wings’ iridescent quality and numerous connotations give my pieces a different meaning and unique visual magic. Furthermore, the butterflies I use are “farmed” in rainforest nations worldwide. Families in India, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Peru, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia collect, farm, and sell insect specimens instead of destroying valuable rainforests for logging or agricultural land. The butterfly farmers of these nations help prevent rainforest deforestation, which makes my pieces eco-friendly.” 

Alina has a B.A. in Fine Art from Florida Gulf Coast University and her pieces can be found in public collections around Florida and private collections all over the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Netherlands, Russia, Spain, Japan and China.

SOLO SHOWS:

RED DOT MIAMI, December 2012.
AFFORDABLE ART FAIR. Seattle Art Center. Nov. 2012
Art Sarasota, aboard the Seafair. March 2012
Art Naples Contemporary Art Fair. March 2012
Solo show at the Foley Performing Arts Center, Foley, Al. January 2012
Solo show at Sweet Art Gallery. October 2011
"Fantasies in Ink: a Collection of Drawings " FGCU Art Gallery, Fort Myers, Fl. January 2011
Solo cruise aboard the Star Princess. March 2011
Solo Cruise aboard the Disney Magic. December 2010
SOLO MIAMI, November 2010
Art Expo New York, March 2010,
National juried Art Festival, Naples, 2009
EXOR GALERY Boca Raton, FL Nov.2008
Picasso Art Museum in Marbella, Spain 2008
Svenska Konstgalleriet, Oslo, Norway, 2008
Svenska Konstgalleriet, Amsterdamm, Holland, 2008
Svenska Konstgalleriet, Sweden 2008
Art Expo New York, NY Feb. 2008
Art Celebration at FGCU, Fort Myers, FL 2008
Mount Dora Art Museum Annual art Event 2008
Solo Artist cruise and presentation, Caribbean Princess Jun 2007
Art Expo Las Vegas Sept. 2007
Coconut Grove National Juried Art Show, FL 2007
Fort Myers Art Council Juried Art Show 2007
Mount Dora Art Museum Annual Art Event 2006
Couchella Valley Juried Exhibition, CA 2006
Art Walk San Diego. March 2005
First Place in mixed media. Conejo Valley Art Museum Festival, June 2005.
Creativity Award. Pacific Fine Arts Festival, Oxnard Museum of Art, CA, May 2005.
Couchella Valley Juried Exhibition, CA 2005
Mount Dora Art Museum Annual art Event 2004
New York Artexpo 2003, February 2003
Art Auction. New Horizons Academy. October, 2000 Las Vegas, NV
Honorable Mention Award. Rotary Club of Studio City Art Show, CA. October 2000.
DIVERSITY 2000: Viva Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2000
Art Auction. New Horizons Academy. October 1999 Las Vegas, NV
Purchase Award: Affaire in the Gardens Art Show. City of Beverly Hills. October 1999.
"Journeys of the Spirit: Cameo Moments in Los Angeles" June 1998 El Pueblo Gallery (Los Angeles Historical District)

GROUP SHOWS:

"Diva Night" Sweet Art Gallery, Naples, FL April-May 2011
"Precious Balance" Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center - Fort Myers, Florida, November 2009
Abbacina Gallery, Venice Fl March 2008
Solo Cruise. Caribbean Princess. June 2007
Lake County Museum of Arts, Lake Eustis, FL. November 2006
La Habra, Ca Art Museum Aug. 2005
Jeanne La Rae Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA August 2002
“Dreaming Of Catopia”. Jeanne La Ray Gallery. Laguna Beach, CA. September, 2001
"Art Gallery" Laguna Niguel, CA, June, 2001
SOHO LA GALLERY, Los Angeles, CA. August 2000

PUBLICATIONS:
Pulse Magazine Naples, March-April, 2011 "Alina Eydel artist."
Gulf Coast Times, March-April, 2007, “Exploring Glamour, Alina Eydel’s Way
Naples Daly News, February 1, 2007 “Young at art”
Gulf Coast Living, February 2005 “The Pleasures of art”
St. Petersburg Times, published February 21, 2003 “Showcasing works of the heart”
The Oregon Herald News, June 4, 2002 “Twelve-year-old Alina Eydel To Showcase Orignal Paintings At Portland Arts Festival”
The Orange County Register, 10/2002 “Young artist sure knows her palette”
The Desert Sun, La Quinta 03/2001 “Arts festival paints brighter future”
Child Art Magazine 07/2001 “Alina Eydel 11-year-old artist”
The Orange County Register : “Whimsical artworks”
Beverly Hills Courier, Los Angeles, CA 1999 “Back for More”

TV AIRTIME:
Ch9 San Diego 06/2005 Morning news "Style" with Leonard Simpson
CH11. Portland News. Interview. 07/2001 Portland, OR
CH4 Desert News. “Young artist at the La Quinta Art Show” 02/2000 La Quinta, CA
PBS. “10-year old artist Alina Eydel.” Interview 09/1999. Orange County, CAL