KATYA BELAIA-SELZER STUDIO - Key Persons

Ahneta Shashkova is a Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust Apprentice at the Studio. She is a paintings and decorative arts conservator-restorer with a Masters in the Conservation and Restoration of Easel Paintings from the Kyiv National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture in Ukraine. She is a current Phd student of the Academy with a thesis on the materials, techniques and art historical context of the twentieth century Ukrainian icon painter Ivan Yizhakevych. Ahneta is also a professionally trained Petrikivka painter: a traditional Ukrainian decorative painting style, which in 2012 was recognized by the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine as a part of the intangible cultural heritage of Ukraine, and is included in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Elisabeth Petrina is a freelance paintings conservator-restorer who joined the team in 2022. She trained at the Hamilton Kerr Institute, University of Cambridge during which time she specialised in non-invasive analysis of paintings and preventative conservation. She has interned at Ebury Street Studio in London and the Studio or Marjan de Visser in the Hague. In 2017 she undertook the conservation, restoration and historical research of a portrait of the Protestant Reformers for Lewis town hall. Her work and findings were presented to the public and published in 2018. Elisabeth has a BSc in chemistry from the University of Liverpool and a diploma in Fine Art from Exeter College. Elisabeth has experience of treating modern and contemporary paintings using the Modular Cleaning Program developed by Chris Stavroudis, she has also taken part in the Cleaning of Acrylic Paintings (CAPS) workshop run by Dr. Bronwyn Ormsby, principal conservation scientist at Tate Gallery. Elisabeth is the conservation director for the Michael Garton (1935-2004, RWA) estate since 2019. Valeriia Kravchenko joined the studio team in 2022. She is an icon painter and conservator-restorer with a Masters in the Conservation and Restoration of Easel Paintings from the Kyiv National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture in Ukraine and a Bachelors from the Lviv National Academy of Arts specializing in iconography. Parallel to her conservation training, Valeriia designs and paints original icons to commission, including the gilded plaster relief. Some of her works have been exhibited at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv and the Kyiv National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture. Through her passion for making art more accessible and inclusive, Valeriia has set up an icon painting course at the Sidur School of Contemporary Art & Design together with the Museum of Ukrainian Art, both in Dnipro, Ukraine, and is collaborating with various museum and design teams to make collections accessible to the blind and partially sighted. Valeriia is Katya's partner in the UA-UK Cultural Heritage Initiative since 2014.