Pi Artworks presents An Enquiry into Colour and Matter, the first solo exhibition by Elina Yumasheva (b. 1988), whose paintings bring traditional techniques into dialogue with environmental science and experimental materials, including pigments extracted from laboratory-cultivated bacteria. A recent graduate of the Royal College of Art and recipient of the Basil H. Alkazzi Scholarship Award, Yumasheva investigates how colour, form and matter emerge through their interactions.
Environmental responsibility is embedded in Yumasheva's working methods rather than treated as a subject for representation. Drawing on her background in environmental science, she combines historical techniques of preparing grounds, sizing canvases and layering pigments with research into alternative materials and non-toxic processes.
Informed by posthuman theories and new materialism, her paintings explore a world in which forms and identities are shaped through relationships rather than existing as fixed, independent entities. Through successive layers of pigment, Yumasheva builds and partially removes colour, allowing traces of earlier layers to remain visible.