Bio

Marina Iljusina (Iljušina) is a London-based visual artist working across painting, mixed media, relief . Her practice explores the fragile territory between inner experience and visible form - where memory, silence, vulnerability and transformation become embedded in material.
Marina builds her works through an intuitive process of layering, concealment and exposure. Faces and fragmented forms emerge from tactile surfaces of plaster, clay, pigment, gauze and textured material, carrying traces of experiences that are often difficult to articulate. Rather than illustrating emotion, she allows it to inhabit the physical surface.

Central to her visual language are delicate, thread-like relief structures created through a process and modelling mixture developed through her own experimentation. Built slowly by hand, these lines are neither textile nor decorative. They move across surfaces and, in some works, extend unsupported through space, becoming veins, roots, scars or currents - fragile connections between what is held within and what becomes visible.

Marina studied Art, Design and Communication at the University of the Arts London (UAL), where her work was selected to promote the course. In 2023, she was one of four students recognised for her Art & Design project, receiving an award presented by Patricia McAllister, Lord Mayor of Westminster. Three of her works were subsequently exhibited at the Marylebone Centre for approximately a year.
Her work has since been presented in London and internationally, with physical and digital presentations in Paris, Basel, Zürich, Seoul, Dubai and Berlin, including Carrousel du Louvre, presentations in Basel during Art Basel week, and two consecutive editions of SWISSARTEXPO in Zürich.

In 2026, her work was presented in London exhibitions including the curated Materiality exhibition at Espacio Gallery and Women in Art London Biennale at Chelsea Old Town Hall

Selected works are presented on Artsy, with a forthcoming public digital presentation in Notting Hill, London.
Recent recognition includes the VAA ART100 International Shortlist 2026, the VAA Art500  International Shortlist 2025 , consecutive Visual Art Open longlist selections in 2025 and 2026, and the Golden Time Talent Grand Prix 2025, awarded to four artists from nearly seventy participants.

In 2026, following an invitation from the Florence Biennale International Selection Committee, Marina’s portfolio received a favourable opinion from the Curatorial Board for participation in the XVI Florence Biennale 2027.

Marina is a Premium Member of the Visual Artists Association (VAA) and a member of the International Association of Visual Artists (IAVA), and a member of the Museums Association (UK).
At the heart of her practice is an attempt to give form to what cannot be fully spoken - allowing memory and emotion to remain in the work not as explanation, but as trace.