Alisa Chernova
Artist - Art Therapist
Path in art
Chernova's practice draws on psychology, philosophy, psychoanalytic thought, the principles of Gestalt therapy, art therapy, and the study of human behavior. While these fields shape her sensitivity to psychological and perceptual processes, her paintings do not illustrate theories, nor do they serve as therapeutic tools. They remain autonomous works of contemporary art, subject to their own formal logic, material structure, and emotional tension.
Her work explores memory, identity, perception, vulnerability, transformation, fantasy, and the unstable relationship between conscious control and unconscious influence. Instead of explaining emotions or offering definitive interpretations, Chernova creates visual conditions where psychological experience can manifest through form, texture, rhythm, fragmentation, contrast, ambiguity, and silence. As a continuation of her personal growth and creative development in the field of Art, she uses ART therapy. This is a powerful tool of psychological correction for dialogue with the viewer and for understanding the nature and essence of emotional problems by visualizing them in her paintings.
Collage plays an important conceptual and material role in her practice. Paper, found fragments, vintage printed matter, and painted surfaces overlap, hide, reveal, and transform each other. These fragments become a visual metaphor for memory itself—not as a stable archive, but as something that is continuously reconstructed through perception, omissions, repetitions, and changes.
Chernova's paintings often balance between analytical structure and intuitive intervention. The initial concept may set the direction, but the artwork develops through layering, reworking, material experimentation, and unexpected connections that arise during the process. For her, painting becomes a dialogue between control and surrender, knowledge and intuition, structure and its disruption.
Key Projects
Her long-term conceptual project "In the Company of Sigmund Freud" explores psychological states through symbolic and expressive imagery, engaging with psychoanalytic ideas without translating them literally. The project has developed in tandem with her broader investigation of identity, memory, desire, fantasy, and the forces that shape human experience beyond consciousness.
The developing project "Illusion of Control" extends this research towards the tension between what an individual considers under control and the invisible forces that influence perception, emotions, and behavior.
Perception and dialogue
Chernova does not seek to provide answers. Her paintings retain ambiguity and leave the meaning open-ended. The viewer is invited not just to understand the image, but to live through it—to encounter personal memories, contradictions, sensations, or questions that may arise in the process of contemplation.
For Chernova, contemporary painting is a space in which inner experience can be observed without being subjugated. Her goal is not to resolve complex emotional states, but to make them tangible and to create a sustained encounter between psychological inquiry and visual art.
Equipment and materials
Chernova works primarily with acrylic paint, collage, textured pastes, paper, vintage printed matter, and mixed media on canvas. Her compositions are characterised by layered surfaces, symbolic figuration, fragmentation, contrasts of density and emptiness, and the interaction between painted and found elements.
Her artistic language continues to evolve through experiments with materials, texture, composition, color, and symbolic imagery. She approaches each painting as an independent visual structure while maintaining its connection to broader conceptual blocks of work.
EDUCATION AND PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND
• Higher medical education, Candidate of Medical Sciences (equivalent to PhD)
• Certified psychotherapist, Gestalt therapist, and art therapist
• Masterclasses with academic art teachers in Spain
• Advanced independent study and continuous professional development in contemporary art
COLLECTIONS
Chernova's works are in private collections in Spain, Ukraine, Poland, the Netherlands, and France.
CURRENT PRACTICE
Alisa Chernova currently lives and works in Marbella (Spain), where she continues to develop her artistic practice and deepen her conceptual research into themes of identity, memory, perception, psychological influence, and the boundaries between conscious control and the unconscious.
International recognition
2026
Noble Art Award | Outstanding Contribution to Artistic Heritage
Award of the international prize for outstanding contribution to artistic heritage. As part of the award, the painting "Who am I. Monologue with myself" was included in the print edition of the Official Art Book — Winners Edition 2026 (the publication is scheduled for October 2026).
2025
Times Square and international exhibitions
Screening of the artwork "Guardian Angel" on the Times Square digital screen in New York. Participation in international exhibitions in the USA, Japan, Italy, France, the Netherlands, and the UK.
2024
Awards and charity projects
Prize-winner of the international competition GOLDEN TIME TALENT (2nd and 3rd places in the Abstract Painting category). Awarded a certificate of gratitude for participating in the charity exhibition "Strong Nation" (Mijas, Spain).