Cities, Communication, and the Female Form
- Tudoran-Opanasenko
- 3 hours ago
- 5 min read
Interview with Tudoran-Opanasenko
1. Please tell us something about your background and your art journey so far.
II was born in Mykolaiv, an industrial city in Ukraine. I loved drawing from childhood, but I understood quite early that becoming an artist was not considered a practical way to make a living. As a result, I stopped drawing for more than twenty years and chose a different professional path.
In 2003, I received a master’s degree in computer science from Admiral Makarov National University of Shipbuilding in Mykolaiv. I later worked as a university lecturer and researcher. My research focused on simulating extreme loads on a ship’s hull during pitching, and the computer program I developed received an author’s certificate.
Even then, I was already drawn to visual communication. In 2015, I published a student coursebook titled Human-Computer Interaction. The book focuses on designing graphical user interfaces with an understanding of how the human brain perceives and processes information. Today, I work as a Senior Software Engineer in an international company.
In 2015, my husband and I moved to Poland. It was a period of change in many areas of my life, and I returned to my childhood interest in drawing. I began learning independently from books. At first, sketching was simply a way to improve my drawing skills, but it soon became a passion and an important way of observing the world.
My backgrounds in technology, education, public speaking, and art often come together in my workshops. I am a Distinguished Toastmaster, the highest educational recognition awarded by Toastmasters International for completing an extensive programme in communication and leadership.
In Sketch Your Speech, I show how drawing and visual thinking can support public speaking. My workshop Two Lines: Strictly to the Point uses the mindset of urban sketching to help participants simplify complex subjects, identify what matters most, and distinguish between main and secondary elements.
For me, art is not separate from my other professional interests. It has become another way of observing, understanding, and communicating complex ideas.
2. Describe what a normal day looks like as an artist.
My normal day does not look especially artistic.
I usually wake up at 6 a.m., make coffee, and spend about fifteen minutes sketching. When the weather is good, I may start the day with physical activity instead—ice-skating in winter or inline-skating in the park in summer.
Then an ordinary corporate day begins: breakfast, eight hours of work as a software developer, cooking, and some form of physical exercise.
When I do not have evening plans, I try to use the remaining time for larger creative projects. I may prepare materials for recording my online course, add another layer to an oil painting, plan a new work, or write an Instagram post.
Rainy weekends are often the most creative and productive. When I stay at home, I can spend several uninterrupted hours painting or recording course materials.
I also used to sketch people in cafés while waiting for my food. They sat in pairs or groups, talking, while people on their own worked on laptops or read books. Today, it often seems that almost everyone is looking at a phone and sitting in the same posture, which is much less interesting to draw.
I would love to have more free time, go outside more often, and have more opportunities to choose both the locations and the people who become the subjects of my sketches.
3. Can you tell us more about the theme in your art and your inspiration?
The city was my starting point and remains one of my main sources of inspiration. When I first moved to Warsaw, it appeared grey to me, with its unusual and sometimes disharmonious mixture of architectural styles. But once I began drawing it, I started to notice its colour, rhythm, contrasts, and atmosphere. Since then, it has never really seemed grey to me again.
Architecture plays an important role in my marker sketches. My earliest works focused mainly on buildings, but gradually people and everyday situations began to enter them. A city cannot exist without people. Behind every window and around every restaurant table there are emotions, relationships, secrets, and private stories that we cannot see from the outside.
This interest in what is hidden behind the visible city also appears in my oil and acrylic paintings. Sometimes the architecture remains present, while in other works the focus moves entirely to the person and, eventually, to the body itself. For me, this is not a separate subject, but a closer view of the same world.
In my figurative work, I use the female body to speak about dignity, femininity, vulnerability, strength, change, and women’s position in society. My series Woman Nude in the Moonlight began with the question of whether the nude female body could be shown with respect, without reducing the woman to an object.
Its continuation, Woman Nude in the Daylight. Transformation, explores the changes that happen to the body, the changes we choose to make ourselves, and the courage to become more visible.
I continue to draw cities with and without people, and to paint figures in oil and acrylic. These directions exist alongside one another, but human presence has become increasingly important in all of them.
4. Tell us about your best experience in the art world so far.
My favourite experiences in the art world are exhibition openings, gallery events, and other occasions when many creative people come together. These are moments of exchanging ideas, seeing familiar subjects from unexpected perspectives, and inspiring one another.
At one such event, a colleague looked at my Woman Nude in the Moonlight series and asked whether the figure was me. I explained that she was not a self-portrait, but that, like every artist, I know my own body and face best. As a result, the women in my paintings naturally carry some—and sometimes many—of my features. I also joked that I had gained a few kilos since creating the work.
My colleague immediately suggested that I repeat the series, this time taking inspiration from my current body. I did not follow her advice literally, but the idea of painting change stayed with me. Some time later, it became part of the concept for Woman Nude in the Daylight. Transformation.
For me, this is one of the most valuable aspects of the art world. Neither art nor science can develop in isolation. Exchange is a great source of growth and the power that moves us forward.
5. What are you working on at the moment and are there any upcoming events you would like to talk about?
At the moment, I am continuing to develop the series Woman Nude in the Daylight. Transformation. The new works explore the female body through different postures involving kettlebells.
For me, the kettlebell is not only a symbol of physical strength. Working with weights gave me confidence and a renewed sense of control at a time when many changes in my body felt beyond my control. Each new posture allows me to explore a different relationship between the body, effort, balance, visibility, and change.
I am also developing an online course, Three Pillars of Urban Sketching, for adults of any drawing level. It is built around three elements—size, details, and environment—and is designed to help participants create clear, expressive urban sketches without needing an academic art background.
In September, several works from my Woman Nude series will take part in the group project exhibition Woman. Body in Berlin. The project brings together stories about women’s relationships with their bodies. Each story is accompanied by a photograph or painting created by the woman herself, allowing the body to be represented from within rather than interpreted only through someone else’s gaze.
Website: tudoran-opanasenko.com
