Ekaterina Fornell

Kiki (Ekaterina) Fornell was born in 1976 in the region of Moscow, USSR, to a family of chemists who were also art lovers and collectors. During her childhood, she often met with a family friend, Moscow artist Dimitry Nechitaylo, whose vibrant, complex colours and lyrical compositions left a strong impression on her vision of art.

Throughout her childhood and adolescence, she witnessed the tremendous changes in her country's life, experiencing stages of admiration, disappointment, cynicism, hope, and anxiety. Growing up during a time of change, Ekaterina absorbed the newly rediscovered ideas of the French Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, as well as the works of Mir Iskusstva artists and Russian avant-gardists like Wassily Kandinsky, Pavel Filonov, and others.

Ekaterina studied fashion design at the State Academy of Goods and Services (now the Russian State University of Tourism and Services) from 1993 to 1998. After graduation, she realised that while she was interested in pursuing a career in design, she was less drawn to working in fashion, particularly with textiles as a medium. In 1999, she worked with icons for the Art Enterprise Sofrino of the Russian Orthodox Church, studying artists such as Andrey Roublev, Theophanes the Greek, Moscow school of iconography. She then explored graphic and industrial design, specialising in watches from 2002.

In 2008, she studied jewellery design at Istituto Europeo di Design in Milan, in 2011 graduated as a Specialist in industrial design at Bauman Technical University in Moscow. Over twenty years in watchmaking, she designed and developed numerous watch collections and was a lead designer of a Moscow based brand Sturmanskie (known for Yuriy Gagrin’s watch) for nine years.

Ekaterina has participated in several exhibitions, including those of Arthur Lee’s studio in the Moscow region. Her watch was exhibited at Galerie Door in the Netherlands as part of the project Cosmos. Lem. Jewellery. Her works are also part of several private collections.

She has received several accolades:
- Finalist, HRD Design Award (Gemstone Necklace and Pendant), HRD Antwerp, June 2020
- Finalist, All-Russian competition for the design of environmental objects "City and Sport," Moscow State University of Design and Technology, The Union of Designers of Russia, May 2011.