About the artist
ALONA PETLIARSKA
Artist & Filmmaker · Orkney, Scotland
Practice
I am a Ukrainian artist and filmmaker based in Orkney, Scotland. My practice moves between painting, drawing, moving image and performance, exploring memory, identity and transformation. I work with images, gestures and stories that move between observation and imagination.
Movement
My background is in choreography. It shapes the way I think about the body in space, the rhythm of an image and the tension between stillness and movement. A gesture can become the starting point for a painting, a character or a film. Movement connects the different parts of my practice.
Memory and Story
Personal experience, displacement and inherited stories inform my work. Folklore offers a way to explore identity and change through figures, symbols and imagined worlds. I am also interested in everyday objects and the traces of memory they hold.
Orkney
Living in Orkney has changed how I observe light, landscape and the relationship between people and place. The coastline, seasonal shifts and visible layers of history enter my work through colour, atmosphere and rhythm.
Moving Image
Experimental film, screendance and music video shaped by movement, rhythm and the body.
Explore moving image →
Selected CV
Education
2024–2025 NC Art & Design — University of the Highlands & Islands, Orkney
2015–2017 MA Choreography — National Academy of Managerial Staff of Culture and Arts, Kyiv
Memberships
2025– Member, Society of Scottish Artists (SSA)
Selected Exhibitions
2026 Sea, Sand, Land & Sky — Northlight Gallery, Stromness (May–June 2026)
2026 Glasgow Art Club — Sacred Goat and The Keeper (on exhibition)
2025 Milestones: A Journey in Colour — Pier Arts Centre, Stromness
2025 Transition Exhibition — Ship of Fools Gallery, Kirkwall
2025 Stromness Street Gallery Windows, Stromness
2024–25 Pier Arts Centre Christmas Exhibition — Pier Arts Centre, Stromness
2025 Degree Show — UHI Orkney, Kirkwall
Awards
2025 Freya Rose Dalrymple Memorial Award (Art) — UHI Orkney
Film screenings and awards
2025 Savage Song — Best Super Short — Luleå International Film Festival · 2025
2026 Within These Walls — Award winner — Couch Film Festival Toronto; finalist — Buzz Cinema UK · 2026
2026 Presence — Selected — Depict! Encounters Bristol · 2026
2026 Legato of the Soul — Confirmed screening — Stromness Glimmers · 12–14 November 2026
Press & Publications
2026 "Making Art in an Age of Noise" — SSA Magazine & website
2025 BBC Orkney — interview & feature on Milestones exhibition
Galleries
Singulart · Saatchi Art · Artmajeur · Society of All Artists (SAA)
Practice
Painting, drawing, moving image, performance
Based
Orkney, Scotland
Listed on
Singulart · Saatchi Art · Artmajeur · SAA
