15th-29th September 2026
How do people relate to one another, and how do we construct the worlds in which those relationships happen?
Ticket to the Theatre brings together a group of paintings, including both earlier works and paintings created specifically for this exhibition. Across these works, Varvara Yurenko investigates human relationships, visual storytelling, and the spaces in which people exist.
Across the paintings certain characters, objects, colours and situations reappear, creating a sense of continuity between otherwise fragmented scenes. Domestic spaces become strange and theatrical, with compositions that feel less like observations of everyday life and more like stages on which something is about to happen. These recurring elements suggest connections between the works, as though they belong to the same unfolding world, while the exact relationships and stories remain open to the viewer.
Varvara is interested in people – how they relate to one another, how they occupy and shape the worlds around them, and how those worlds change through their relationships. As a Ukrainian artist, her understanding of human relationships and everyday life is also shaped by the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. While the works in this exhibition do not directly depict the war, some of the scenes are informed by the experience of watching life continue alongside it. People continue to meet, work, celebrate, create and construct their own small worlds, even while another reality exists beyond them. Varvara is interested in this tension – between being present in everyday life and being aware of what is happening elsewhere, and in the ways we sometimes choose, consciously or unconsciously, to look away.
The title Ticket to the Theatre refers to the act of entering these worlds. As the viewer you arrive with a ticket and, at first, occupy the familiar position of an audience member. But without the presence of the viewer, the work does not fully exist – it needs an audience to be seen and heard. Once inside, the audience is no longer simply watching. They become an actor.
The paintings can therefore be approached not only as images, but as stages: spaces that are waiting to be entered and inhabited.
The ticket gives you the right to enter. What happens once you are inside?
Read our interview with Varvara over on our blog.
Varvara Yurenko (Varvara Ю) is a Ukrainian Glasgow-based multidisciplinary artist whose practice explores the relationship between people, place and the changing environment. Her practice focuses on investigating human relationships, how people relate to one another, and how they construct the worlds in which those relationships take place. Working across painting, photography, installation and sculpture, she combines observational imagery with abstract and material processes to consider how personal experience intersects with wider social questions.
She graduated with First Class Honours in Fine Art Painting and Printmaking from The Glasgow School of Art in 2026. Her earlier studies include Art Textile at the Lviv National Academy of Arts and an exchange in Visual and Graphic Design at ESAD Orléans, France.
Her recent exhibitions include the solo exhibition The Living of Telling at The LAB Gallery, Glasgow (2025), and group exhibitions including While We Are Here at N. Atelier, Glasgow (2026), the Glasgow School of Art Degree Show (2026), Offerings at Six Foot Gallery (2026), and One Fold at Strange Fields, Glasgow (2025).
Varvara is particularly interested in creating work that invites viewers to become active participants, almost as actors stepping into the worlds constructed within her paintings and installations.
Ticket to the Theatre runs at Six Foot Gallery from 15th-29th September 2026. Connect with Varvara over on Instagram.