Zinaida Konovalova

I am a Russian-born artist based in San Jose, California, working primarily in oil painting. My background in geophysics and technology reflects a lasting interest in what lies beneath the visible surface. After moving to California in 2014, I continued painting alongside my career in technology, gradually bringing art to the center of my life.

My work explores how inner experience transforms our perception of ourselves, other people, and the spaces around us. Through expressive color, deformation, and rhythm, I give emotions a physical presence.

In my series "Timelessness", abstracted female figures explore connection, independence, and shared memory. An encounter with another woman becomes an encounter with myself. In my city series "Cities as emotions", architecture becomes a vessel for emotion: buildings, windows, and shifting perspectives express the meeting between a place and my inner world.

Across both bodies of work, I invite viewers to recognize something of their own experience through color, form, and space.

2007–2010 — Studied painting under Vyacheslav Shraga.