Daria Oleksiivna Alyoshkina (Дарія Олексіївна Альошкіна; 5 March 1982 – 15 August 2026) was a Ukrainian papercutting artist, known for her large vytynanky.
Life and work Alyoshkina was born in Kyiv on 5 March 1982, to the artists Lyudmyla and , who later moved to a village in the Vinnytsia Oblast. There, her parents created sculptures and pottery, painted, and raised five children.
She graduated from the in Vyzhnytsia in 2001 and from the Lviv National Academy of Arts in 2007 with a master's degree in monumental and decorative sculpture. Since 1996, she has participated in sculpture exhibitions and symposiums in Ukraine, Poland, and Lithuania. After the birth of her children, she turned to the art of paper cutting to balance her artistic development with family life. Inspired by the historical Ukrainian tradition of decorating windows with vytynanky, she developed her own technique for creating large-format paper artworks. Her paper cuttings are characterized by symmetry, achieved by folding the paper before cutting.
From 2010 onwards, Alyoshkina represented Ukraine at international events with monumental paper-cut works. In 2018, the French luxury brand Cartier adorned one of its boutiques with her paper cutouts. In 2019, Alyoshkina collaborated with Isabelle Deron on a window display as part of the Printemps Français festival in Kyiv.
Alyoshkina was married to the musician and master lira maker . The couple had three children. Before the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the family lived and worked in Lviv.
Alyoshkina died on 15 August 2026, at the age of 44. A memorial service was held on 17 August at the Church of St. Clement the Pope in Lviv, and the artist's funeral was held the next day in the same church. Daria Alyoshkina was buried on August 18 in the Lychakiv Cemetery.
Exhibitions (select) 2018: Biennale at Révélations Grand Palais, Paris 2018: Decoration of Ukrainian stand, Maison et objet at Paris Design Week, Paris 2019: Exhibition of paper-cut art at the UN Headquarters, Geneva 2020: Biennale di Venezia at the invitation of the Michelangelo Foundation 2020: Lace of Memory. In the memory of the victims of the Great Famine in Ukraine (1932-1933). , Kraków 2021: Lace on Paper, Ivano-Frankivsk 2021: Futurespective: 30 Covers for Vogue UA of Ukrainian Artists,Kyiv Contemporary Art Center M17 2021: Paris Design Week, Ukrainian Cultural Center, Paris 2021: Two Projects, Nizza 2021: Shchedryk, National Museum in Lviv 2022: Ev. Hauptkirche St. Petri, Hamburg 2023: Venice Biennale of Architecture 2023: Biennale by the Révélations Grand Palais, Paris 2023: YouNique – Boutique Fair of Arts, Lugano 2024: Stille Poesie, Stadtmuseum Stuttgart
References
External links Daria Alyoshkina on Facebook Daria Alyoshkina on Instagram