Viola Winokan is a visual artist blending photography, drawing, and experimental techniques. Raised between Moscow and Berlin, she studied art history, worked as a gallerist, and collaborated with renowned artists like Helmut Newton and Daido Moriyama. Based in Amsterdam, her work is in collections worldwide and exhibited at Museum Mauritshuis and at Open Ateliers Amsterdam.

Her multidisciplinary work spans fine art, photography, writing, and culinary art. Projects like A Million Colors and Coffee Stories & Images explore human relationships through poetry, psychology, and humor. Since 2015, she's used coffee pigment in calligraphic works titled It All Started With a Cup of Coffee. Viola leads workshops, teambuilding sessions, and chef’s ttable dinners with her own recipes. She also advises the Amsterdam Art Foundation and deals in contemporary art. 

Viola Winokan’s drawings move between image, language, and inner dialogue. Executed in pastel and charcoal, they often resemble oversized book covers: bold color fields carrying handwritten text that mimics the authority of print. The phrases are rooted in deep thinking, humor, and psychology. The language is concise, ironic, and deliberately open-ended, allowing meaning to emerge between the words and the viewer. The statements feel personal yet are widely recognisable.

The series painted with coffee pigment reflects on coffee culture as ritual and encounter. The artist combines coffee drawings with her own photographs, embedding everyday connection into image and material.