Ksenia Malafeeva
(b. 1981, Ivanovo, Russia)

Ksenia Malafeeva is an emerging contemporary artist working primarily with photography.

She first explored painting during her school years before pursuing architecture, graduating in 2003 from the Ivanovo Architectural and Civil Engineering Academy with a degree in Engineering. In 2005, she moved to Moscow, where her lifelong passion for photography deepened. Since childhood, she has perceived photography as a mystical transformation of time and space—continuing life on paper through visual form.

Malafeeva completed a year-long program in Contemporary Photography at the Polezreniya school and is currently studying art history, situating her practice within the broader context of contemporary photography. Her creative research gravitates toward minimalism and abstraction, inspired by the interplay of architecture, nature, and environment—where three-dimensional forms merge and reconfigure into new visual constructions that stand as independent works of art.

In 2024, she was nominated for the Photo Basel x Maurice de Mauriac Photo Award. Her work navigates between traditional and contemporary photography, often described by curators and critics as pictorial and atmospheric, marked by a unique use of color that evokes nostalgia while elevating the beauty of ordinary life.

Her works are held in private collections in France, Germany, the United States, and Switzerland. In 2024, she published her first monograph, Ordinary Life, with Form Gallery.



Solo show

2025, The Association of International Photography Art Dealers, New York, Park Armory Avenue
2024, SCOPE art fair during ART BASEL MIAMI
2024, Form Gallery, My Ordinary Life

Selected exhibitions

2024, Discovery section Photo London
2024, Curated NOVUM sector, Photo Basel
2024, MSK Eastside Gallery

Awards and nominations

2024, Nominated to Maurice de Mauriac x photo basel award 2024
Curated selection of female photographers by Swiss Magazine Annabelle