Krystyna Melnyk is a Ukrainian artist, who works with concepts such as the classical and the sacred through imagery. 

The artist was born in Melitopol, Ukraine, in 1993. Her early foundational training in the arts took place at the Melitopol High College of Culture (2010-2014) and continued at the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture (2014-2018). She also attended the Contemporary Art Course at the Kyiv Academy of Media Arts.

In 2019, she completed a course on video art at Viktor Marushchenko's School of Photography, curated by Alina Kleytman. In 2022, she was nominated for the Pinchuk Art Prize.

Krystyna Melnyk's paintings have been featured in numerous exhibitions, including those at Kyiv Acadamy of Media Arts, The Naked Room Gallery, and Voloshyn Gallery, among other venues.

Inspired and influenced by Georges Bataille and particularly his text "Histoire de l'œil", the artist seeks to convey a sense of the sacred through the idea of the suffering body, as described by the philosopher. Melnyk engages with the world of sacred feelings not only metaphysically: the artist incorporates levkas and oil into her works. Traditionally used in iconography, these materials provide greater durability to the pieces, which often require extended periods to create.

Since the onset of the full-scale invasion, Krystyna increasingly identifies herself as an iconographer rather than an artist. Even her early works were tied to reflections on the perception of war's past. In those pieces, the artist contemplated why World War II occurred. At the time, it was difficult to imagine such events repeating. Now, Krystyna's body of work appears prophetic.