Autistic Alchemist

elenA is an interdisciplinary artist who lives and works in Switzerland. She studied fine arts at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Tufts University in Boston and holds a Bachelors degree in political science from University of Zurich as well as a Masters degree in Business Engineering from ZHAW in Switzerland.

Her work is about balancing extremes and deals with topics such as psychological and/or physical abuse and its consequences, mental illness and spirituality.

Elena has autism spectrum disorder and suffered multiple bouts of depression over the course of her life. To her, making art is a way of life and also a survival mechanism. Later in life she trained to become an art therapist, which helped her to use art making as a way to tap into the unconscious and to mobilise self-healing properties.

With regards to collage making she looked to Hannah Höch as inspiration and role model. Her interest in political philosophy led her to the writings of Richard Lichtman, a Marxist theorist, whom she became pen pals with. As to the crude and explicit display of human emotion, she looks up to the work of Francis Bacon and Eric Fischl. As far as non-figurative work, the landscapes of Georgia O’Keeffe and April Gornik have been...

ZHAW – School of Management and Law
MAS Business Engineering
January 2022

ZHAW – School of Management and Law
CAS Business Modeling & Transformation
January 2020 – June 2020

ZHAW – School of Management and Law
CAS Business Analysis & Methods
August 2019 – December 2019

ZHAW – School of Management and Law
CAS Digital Strategy & Value Creation
January 2019 – June 2019

ZHAW – School of Management and Law
CAS Innovation, Customer Experience Management & Service Design
September 2018 – December 2018

University of Zurich (extra-occupational)
Political Science (Bachelor of Arts in Social Science)
2008 – 2010

University of Zurich (extra-occupational)
Studies in Political Science
2002 – 2006

School of the Museum of Fine Arts / Tufts University Boston (MA), Bachelor of Fine Arts
1999 – 2001

Cleveland Institute of Art Cleveland (OH), USA
Studies in Fine Arts
1998 – 1999