artists
every piece has a story, and every story begins with an artist
WAIHŌPAI INVERCARGILL, NEW ZEALAND · MIXED-MEDIA & TEXTILE ARTIST
Victoria Naboka
Victoria Naboka is an award-winning Ukrainian-born visual artist based in Waihopai Invercargill, Murihiku Southland. Working across painting, textiles and found materials, she explores memory, migration, identity and transformation through vivid colour, geometric form and richly textured surfaces.
about
Victoria Naboka’s artistic practice is shaped by movement between places, cultures and visual traditions.
Drawing on her Ukrainian heritage and her experience of living in Aotearoa New Zealand, Victoria explores the points of connection between cultures, personal experience and collective memory.
Upcycling sits at the heart of her process. Old frames, fabrics, faded photographs and personal archives are reclaimed and given a renewed presence within her work.
Victoria paints directly onto textiles such as fleece, velvet and wool, preserving their textures, imperfections and previous histories as part of the visual language. Across these tactile surfaces, she builds bright, geometric and colour-saturated compositions.
Black-and-white photographs frequently become starting points. By translating them into vivid colour, Victoria opens familiar images to new emotional possibilities—allowing forgotten or painful stories to be reconsidered, recoloured and brought back to life.
Her work explores memory, the body, migration and the different social layers that shape how people experience the world. Transformation is both a subject and a physical process within her practice.
Victoria’s approach is intuitive and meditative while remaining strongly conceptual. Colour is not simply decorative; it becomes a way to shift meaning, express emotion and reveal beauty within histories that may be complex or difficult.
Her work has been exhibited throughout New Zealand and internationally, including Australia, the United Kingdom, Italy, France and Ukraine.
In 2025, Victoria received an award at the ILT Art Awards for her work Saved. Two further works were selected as finalists for the 2026 ILT Murihiku Art Awards.
Through reclaimed materials, personal histories and vibrant colour, Victoria celebrates difference while exploring how memories and identities can be carried, reshaped and renewed.
Because even the most difficult histories can hold the possibility of transformation.
Victoria Naboka
Rainbow pathways, bright geometric shapes and a soft textile surface bring colour and movement to this playful work.
In Upward Roots — Frankie’s rainbow, Victoria Naboka layers red, orange, yellow, blue and lilac against deep teal and a luminous lime border. Rounded bands turn and rise through the composition, intersecting with a pale horizontal form, a pink column and an outlined circle.
The work began with discarded fleece fragments discovered by Victoria’s friend Frankie and a photograph of a rainbow appearing to touch her chimney. Imagining the rainbow growing upward from the earth, Victoria explores connection, transformation and unseen energy. Acrylic and reclaimed fleece on a secondhand canvas give these ideas a tactile presence.
This colourful work would bring energy to a living room, entranceway or creative workspace, with its vivid palette standing out against neutral walls and natural timber.
Vibrant · Tactile · Playful
Acrylic and fleece on secondhand canvas · 40 cm wide × 60 cm high × 2 cm deep · 2026
Ready to hang · Textile-covered sides and back