Valentyna Crane — Canberra I Keep

Valentyna Crane is a Canberra-based contemporary impressionist artist whose work is shaped by colour, light, landscape and the small moments that make a place feel like home.

Valentyna’s artistic foundations were formed at the Crimean Art College named after N. S. Samokish in Simferopol, where she trained in the traditions of drawing, painting and composition. She later completed a Master’s degree in Architecture and Landscape Design, bringing an understanding of space, structure and landscape into her painting practice. Today, she brings those European artistic foundations together with a deep love for the Australian landscape.

Canberra has become one of the central subjects of Valentyna’s work. She is drawn to its layered hills, open skies, changing seasons, gardens, wildlife and the quiet poetry of everyday life. Kangaroos at the National Arboretum, hot-air balloons at first light, suburban peacocks, spring gardens, familiar walking tracks, dogs and the communities that form around ordinary places all find their way onto her canvases.

Some visitors may remember Valentyna’s work from her three solo exhibitions at the National Arboretum Canberra since 2018, or may have seen her painting outdoors at Tulip Top Gardens. Since 2017, she has also gathered a year of paintings into an annual art calendar, another way of recording the places, seasons and moments she wants to keep.

Her new exhibition, Canberra I Keep, brings together paintings from roughly a decade of life in Canberra. It is a personal record of what she discovered here, the friendships and communities she found, the places she returned to and the moments that stayed with her.

At the heart of Valentyna’s work is a simple purpose: to bring more light and beauty into the world, and to focus on what is positive, tender and life-giving. Visitors are invited to come, spend time with the paintings, and perhaps recognise a little piece of their own Canberra in them.

Exhibition: 22 October – 4 November 2026
Opening Night: Friday 23 October, 6–8pm
The Front Gallery & Cafe, Lyneham

Tickets available HERE

Instagram: @artist.val.crane