Artist Bio 10.06.2026 12:40

Alena Kurdyukova (b. 2005, Moscow) is an artist working under the name Teknalen. Lives and works in Moscow.

About the work
Teknalen operates within a dark, depressive aesthetic where rejection, anxiety and quiet psychological unease become not a side effect but the core of meaning. Her works are born involuntarily — this is not constructed gloom, but the result of years of lived observation, personal reflection and a response to the situation in the country and the world. The pieces do not invite comfortable contemplation: they provoke discomfort bordering on disgust, and it is precisely in this gap between aversion and empathy that their content reveals itself.

Teknalen’s style is built on distorted, deliberately irregular forms: proportions are displaced, anatomy is disrupted, lines move away from harmony. This is a conscious aesthetic of fracture, where imperfection acts as a carrier of psychological truth. The artist considers the format of painting, yet her true inclination is towards the creation of a material, tangible object. She needs to physically feel what she is making — to sculpt, press, shape volume — turning inner states into a tactile form that can be walked around with the gaze and touched by hand.

Her first conceptual work is the series of art objects “Russian Longing”: eight heads made of polymer clay, hand-sculpted and hand-painted with acrylics under matte varnish. These are not portraits in the conventional sense, but psycho-emotional imprints of time, collective fatigue and silent testimony. Alongside sculpture, Teknalen creates custom toys, jewellery and digital animations, and holds workshops at the intersection of art and psychology.

Works
Teknalen’s works are held in private collections in Moscow, Saint Petersburg and other cities across Russia. The artist continues to build her exhibition fund and expand her collection of art objects.