Sana Shahmuradova Tanska: The Rapture

MOCAK The Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow is honoured to present solo exhibition of one of the most distinctive artists of the youngest generation of Ukrainian art, Sana Shahmuradova Tanska.

The exhibition The Rapture includes, among other things, a newly created painting installation comprising ten individual works that explore the fluidity of identity, the deep bonds between people and the earth, and the resilience of the human spirit. The characters created by Shahmuradova Tanska are in a state of constant transformation, permeating time and space to reflect a shared experience shaped by sensitivity and strength. Her immersive, panoramic frieze invites viewers into a world where memory, myth and life experience entwine to offer a poetic reflection on belonging and survival. Presented at the Alfa Gallery, the eponymous frieze The Rapture gently blends into the architecture of the museum’s interior, to establish an almost psychedelic relationship with nature in the adjacent garden. The second part of the exhibition, arranged in the Beta Gallery, focuses on the artist’s earlier paintings, allowing viewers to trace the development of her artistic language and examine her areas of interest, which oscillate between apocalyptic themes and epiphany. Here, Shahmuradova Tanska draws on biblical motifs of the creation of the world and its destruction – the themes of her works poised on the boundary between life and death, dream and reality, and between what is real and what is surreal.

The artist’s distinctive visual language, underpinned by fluid organic lines and luminous oil paints, evokes oneiric, mythical landscapes in which figures merge with their surroundings. Drawing on both her personal history and responding to the current situation in Ukraine, her works become vehicles for both individual and collective trauma. Shahmuradova Tanska’s work offers a multi-layered reflection on uprooting, perseverance and the role of dreams as a refuge from adversity.

Sana Shahmuradova Tanska

Painter, born in 1996 in Odesa, Ukraine. In 2010, she graduated from ballet school, and in 2013, she emigrated with her family to Canada. There, in 2020, she obtained a bachelor’s degree in psychology from York University, Toronto. In 2020, Shahmuradova Tanska decided to move to Kyiv, where she continues her work in painting and graphic art. In her work, she uses a variety of materials, such as wood, jute, canvas and oil paints. The artist explores her origins, using trauma as a tool for communication and connecting with her ancestors. Her latest works explore intergenerational trauma and the role of dreams therein, often highlighting violence and atrocities committed against civilians and nature of Ukraine by the aggressor state, Russia. Her paintings were presented at the Dhaka Art Summit in Dhaka (2023), at Mystetskyi Arsenal in Kyiv (2023), at the EVA International Biennial in Limerick (2023), at the Sydney Biennale (2024) and at Art Basel (2025).

Sana Shahmuradova Tanska is represented by Gunia Nowik Gallery in Warsaw and Voloshyn Gallery in Kiev and Miami.