Layered /The Mother
Mixed Media with Natural and Precious Materials
Layered: The Mother is a rich tapestry of texture and spirit, born from Elena Zelenina's journey to Bali and the awe she felt in the presence of its mystical beauty. The work is built from layers of paint, resin, grains, shells collected in Bali, semi-precious stones, and glass. Together they create a surface that feels ancient and alive, like an archeological landscape revealing hidden stories.
The composition glows with earthy reds, browns, and golds, echoing both fertile soil and sacred fire. Embedded beads and stones pulse like seeds, symbols of nourishment, renewal, and life's continuity. The golden sun in the upper plane offers warmth and divinity, while the curving lines suggest both a body's contours and a landscape's folds.
At its heart, this work carries the energy of the Mother, protective, abundant, and multifaceted. She is not a single image but many layers of meaning: earth and womb, creator and sustainer, home and mystery. Each material, each embedded fragment, becomes part of her language. The piece invites the viewer to look closely, touch with their eyes, and feel the intimacy and vastness of maternal energy, the layers of healing, nourishment, and spiritual presence that live in nature and ourselves.

Poem
The Mother
She moves beneath the surface of things,
a river without beginning or end.

Her breath rises in dawn light,
Her silence deepens with the dusk.

Mountains echo her bones,
Winds carry her unspoken songs.

In the curve of stone and seed
Her patience waits

Layer and layer,
Ancient and new.

To enter her gaze
Is to remember

What we have always known:
We belong.