“In Romanova's projects, life has many layers. This sensation is achieved through the use of a variety of materials, ranging from enamel and metal to the artist's favourite cardboard, whose ephemerality, in her own words, conveys ‘the truth of life’.”
From the press release for “The Observers” exhibition at Totibadze Gallery, written by Ekaterina Gershenzon, June 2024.

“Cardboard objects are balancing between painting, relief, theatre props, book layouts and even sculpture. However, genetically they go back to the traditional ‘picture in a frame’, fragmenting a certain slice of reality.”
Galina Yelshevskaya, art historian and critic

“A cardboard box offers not only a surface for painting, but also the possibility of working simultaneously with real and depicted volumes, a field for the interaction between the space of painting and the space of life.”
“For the artist who is fascinated by plasticity but has exhausted all the illusions associated with the depiction of volume on a/the plane, the possibilities of this material are unlimited.”
Olga Yablonskaya, art historian and critic

“Metal net silhouettes by Alyona Romanova personify bodily experience as if they store the imprints of bodies or rather form such imprints.”
“It seems as if the artist is removing a thin film, the body as a surface, literally.”
Elena Petrovskaya, philosopher, senior researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the RAS From the article “Save Our Souls”