The tray “Bouquet” from the museum collection was painted by Yelena Leonidovna Otmakhova (née Kodochigova). She was born in Nizhny Tagil in 1962. In 1979, she enrolled at a technical vocational school where she studied tray painting.

Yelena Otmakhova was an apprentice at the Emalposuda (Enamelware) factory under the guidance of Agrippina Vasilyevna Afanasyeva (1913–2004), an experienced master of tray painting art. She taught Otmakhova the basics of traditional quick single-layer tray painting. The young artist’s mentor and teacher was the craftswoman Tamara Vladimirovna Yudina.

In 1982, Yelena Otmakhova joined the creative group at the factory’s workshop. She worked on both traditional flower compositions and original designs, creating stylized images of flowers. In 1996, Yelena Otmakhova was accepted into the Union of Russian Artists. At that time, she became head of a tray painting club at the School of Arts and Crafts. Later, the club was transformed into a school of art and aesthetics, and in 2012, Yelena Otmakhova became its director. In 2016, she received the honorary title of the Master of Folk Arts and Crafts of the Sverdlovsk Region.

In the composition of this tray, the artist managed to combine the beauty of fantastic Nizhny Tagil roses with stylized natural floral arrangements of dahlias, irises, daisies, and chrysanthemums. In this bouquet, the flowers have unique pointed petals. The artist also included strawberry runners with their distinct spiral shapes. For this composition, she used bright colors, mostly various shades of orange, green, and yellow.

Describing her artistic and life philosophy, Yelena Otmakhova said,