In 1940, Alexandra Iosifovna entered the Faculty of Natural Geography of the Annunciation Pedagogical Institute. In 1942, she graduated from nursing courses and went to the army. Utkina served as the commander of the rangefinder squad of the 175th artillery division of the 2nd Far Eastern Army, participated in hostilities. At the front, she met her future husband Vasily Utkin.

 
After the war, Utkina graduated from the pedagogical institute and left with her husband to the Urals. Most of her life was associated with the village of Klenovskoye, where her husband worked as the director of an exemplary state farm. Utkina herself taught biology and geography at school, worked with students on state farm fields, raised five children — her own and foster ones.

 
The artist’s works can be classified as naive art — one of the trends in the work of self-taught artists. Naive art deliberately, and more often intuitively ‘incorrectly’ uses the formal principles of painting. Because of this, in the paintings, as in children’s drawings, the perspective is distorted, bright colors and sharp boundaries of objects are preserved in all objects, and the details of the background remain as clear as in the foreground.

 
Utkina adds disproportionate trees and unusual animals to her realistic landscapes, uses distorted foreground images and depicts objects in the background. Simplified details and understandable images help the artist convey sincere feelings, not burdened with subtext.

 
All this can be seen in the painting ‘Wolves’ presented in the exhibition. It is based on real events: one winter Utkina happened to meet a pack of wolves. Five wild animals in a forest glade symbolize the artist’s feelings: hunger, fear and uncertainty. They resemble evil spirits — devils. Bright yellow eyes combined with a green background that is illuminated as if the action did not take place at night — all this creates a sense of reality bordering on a mystical tale.