Tetiana Samoilenko — Gemstone & Diamond Oil Paintings

Tetiana Samoilenko is a contemporary Ukrainian artist based in Poland. A professionally trained oil painter educated in Fine and Decorative Arts at Kyiv Polytechnic Institute (2011), she has devoted her practice since 2016 to a singular subject: gemstones and diamonds, rendered in oil from palm-sized pieces to monumental canvases reaching 130 cm. Through her AmberSunArt shop, she shares her gemstone visions globally. Over 200 paintings have been created and sold to private collectors and jewelry brands worldwide. She collaborates with distinguished houses including The Diamond Reserve, Her Rock, Jade Thomas Jewellery, and The Precious Lace Jewelry. Her work is held in private collections across the USA, Canada, Australia, Mexico, Japan, and Belgium, and has been exhibited internationally, including at the Colorado School of Mines Geology Museum. In 2025 she took part in a post-competition exhibition at Galeria Wozownia in Toruń, Poland, and participated in AMBERIF during Gdańsk Jewelry Week. In 2025 she began a collaboration with Verger Art Gallery in Seoul, South Korea, culminating in her debut solo exhibition — Timeless Brilliance — presented by Verger Gallery at Donggyo-ro 51Gil, Seoul, from 4 to 31 May 2026. Artist Statement In a world where everything flashes past too quickly to hold our attention, a gemstone is the embodiment of stability and timelessness. Its beauty is beyond dispute and beyond decay. That is exactly what my collectors seek — art that confirms, rather than questions, the values of permanence and excellence. Gemstones have always belonged to those who shape the world. A ruby in a sovereign’s crown, a cascade of sapphires at the throat of a queen — these were never merely ornamental. They were instruments of authority, markers of lineage, proof of permanence. Centuries pass, empires rise and dissolve, yet the stones remain as brilliant as the day they were cut. My foundation is the diamond cut — historical and contemporary forms refined by centuries of master jewelers. The cut is the architecture, I fill it with my own color, light, and meaning. I work in a single layer, facet by facet, the way a stained-glass window is assembled: each bright, precisely bordered segment placed beside the next until the full portrait emerges. Yet this is not mere replication. My deepest artistic affinity is with impressionism — the desire to capture not the object, but the impression of it. When I paint a sapphire, I am painting the deep, velvety-blue of an evening sky over a river, reflected and concentrated inside a stone. The bright highlight gives realism, the color gives mood. The painting arrives to me as a complete vision — fire inside a garnet, sparkling rainbows within a brilliant — and then it is simply a matter of bringing it to life on canvas.