Tag: Завершено

Alla Honcharuk (1947) is a Ukrainian artist who works in an expressive painting style. In the 1970s, she fundamentally disregarded the rules of the Soviet situation to reveal the themes of humanism, faith, hope, and honesty. In all her plots, Alla Honcharuk brings up the problem of humans in society, cityscapes, still lifes, genre scenes, and symbolic compositions. Among her stylistic references are post-impressionism, ancient icon painting, German expressionism, and the work of the Armenian artist Minas Avetisyan. Her manner is characterized by a limited palette of primary colors: red, blue, yellow, and black. Due to contrasts and rich colors, the artist is included in the "strict style" - the direction of realistic Soviet painting of the 1960s. Her works have been exhibited at Ukrainian and international exhibitions since 1978. Currently, her works are stored in the Lviv Art Gallery, the National Museum in Lviv named after A. Sheptytsky, and the Khmelnytskyi Art Museum.

The artist created the work "Woman from the Carpathians" under the impression of student ethnographic practice in the Carpathians in the summer of 1973: the large-scale symbolism of the mountains, the authenticity of the Hutsul culture faded under the needs of the urbanized world, folk craftsmen lost their deep connection with the sources of ancient crafts. The woman in the picture conveys the feeling of being unable to fit into someone else's imposed social structure. Her feet are rooted in her native land, but she stands uncertainly, looking obliquely into the distance at the city where she descends. Behind her, the mountains are burning red - in her past are the strength and stubbornness of the original Hutsul spirit. In front of her is a valley flooded with black - her present is drowning in the hustle and bustle of the city, new complex relationships between people.

Anatoly Kryvolap (1946) is a Ukrainian painter, a master of color expression, who interprets painting outside the range of figurative abstraction. The metaphorical world of Kryvolap is deeply rooted in the tradition of ethnic and spiritual culture. The author proposes the concept of a "new Ukrainian landscape", where color has an independent emotional function, turning the landscape into a meditative space. For him, color combinations are nerve cells that create bright and powerful sensations woven from contrasts and contradictions. Kryvolapa's canvases will create new traditions, defining Ukraine's place in the 21st century. According to Forbes magazine, Kryvolap became the most successful artist in Ukraine and the most expensive among artists of Ukrainian contemporary art worldwide - in 2011, at the Philips auction in London, his canvas "Horse. Night" was sold for $121,343. 

"Spring Yard" is the work of Anatoly Kryvolap from the early period of creativity after the academic decade. The author started as an academic artist, painted sketches from nature, but did not want to create "Soviet art". He studied color and developed its shades in this early period, almost like a scientist researching color theory. Kryvolap, as an artist, feels the world and reacts to reality with colors. Spring nature on the landscape has not yet blossomed, so spring is most strongly felt in the bright color of the sky. The contrasts of this landscape tease and appeal to the viewer's sensory experience to immerse him in a meditative state. 

Anatol Stepanenko (1948) is a Ukrainian postmodern artist. He worked in performance, film directing, and conceptual photography and founded the cyberpunk style in Ukrainian painting. In his art, the critical transformations of the consciousness of Ukrainians from the mid-1970s to today are reproduced. Since 1987, the works of Anatoly Stepanenko have been exhibited at exhibitions in Toronto and the annual International Exhibition of Miniatures in Poland. In 2001, the artist took part in the Venice Biennale. Personal exhibitions of the artist were held in Kyiv, Basel, Trier, Zurich, Tbilisi, and Krakow, and he also implemented other projects in New York, Canada, and Hungary.

Contemporaries call Anatoly Stepanenko an «artist beyond taboos». His project "Transmutations" combines conceptual photography, body art actions, and performance. One of the motives that formed the basis of this series was the Chornobyl tragedy. The painted body of the mannequin is reminiscent of archaic ritual practices that invoke human fear. Reflections on human mutations after the nuclear disaster and trends of transspecies mutations due to technological progress were the most progressive discourse of the late 1990s. That is why this series of photo installations by Stepanenko represented Ukrainian art at the Venice Biennale.

Antonina Denysiuk (1963, Lviv) is a Ukrainian artist, curator, and DE NOVO International Art Symposium organiser. The artist works with painting, graphics, sculpture, and installation. Her art arises from primary chaos, structured in the minimalism of creative imagery and the laconic rhythm. Since the artist uses unique means of expression and techniques, fitting her into a specific style is challenging. Antonina Denysiuk's work has been awarded international prizes and scholarships from the Krasner Pollock Foundation (USA), Culture-Contact (Austria), and Adam Mickiewicz Institute (Poland). She won the Lorenzo de' Medici Special Award at the 8th Florence Biennale of Contemporary Art. Her pieces are in collections abroad in the ALBERTINA Museum in Vienna, the Lentos Art Museum in Linz, the Center of Contemporary Art at Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw, and Ukraine in the Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery, the Museum of Modernism in Lviv, and the Korsaks Museum of Modern Ukrainian Art in Lutsk.

The work "And Suddenly I Saw the Sun, a Beautiful Tanned Sun" continues the "Born in the Ocean" series, launched in Berlin in 2016. Denysiuk expresses the philosophy of her worldview through the visual paradoxes of kinetic statics with the help of a unique artist's technique. The texture of alabaster, an organic mineral used by her in the piece, changes over time, dries up, grows and turns into a stone structure. At the same time, along with solidified alabaster, Denysiuk uses feathers, a material that symbolizes "life as air". Its delicate and moving texture in its structure and sensitivity breathes like a yellow-hot solar wind stream, reflecting human kinship with the Earth and the World Ocean.

Vasyl Bazhai (1950) is a Ukrainian abstract artist. Works with easel painting, performance, installation, and ready-made objects. The artist's works are deeply introspective - he tries to get to know himself. Most of the works are nameless, giving absolute space for imagination and improvisation. There are no frameworks here, only freedom of thought and thinking. A characteristic feature of Vasyl Bazhai's work is the transformation of paintings into spatial objects. In this way, the author gives them a completely new visual meaning and content. Vasyl Bazhai's works were exhibited at personal and group exhibitions in Austria, Belgium, Poland, the USA, Egypt, Germany, and Switzerland. His works are kept in galleries and private collections in Ukraine, Belgium, and the USA. 

The painting "Antithesis" is part of the "DE-TERMINO" project, which was started in 1984. Positioning creation as "a performance with paints and a canvas", the artist calls for meditative contemplation. Vasyl Bazhai plays with the viewer's imagination, prompting him to think. That is why the artist is not tied to a particular form; he experiments with textures and spots, creating space for interpretations and multivariate interpretation. 

Віктор Зарецький (1925 – Viktor Zaretskyi (1925 – 1990) is a Ukrainian artist and one of the leaders of the Shistdesiatnyky (The Sixties) movement. He worked in easel and monumental painting. The early period of his creativity is marked by features of Soviet modernism. After the death of his wife, Alla Horska, in the 1970s, he created expressive images of Ukrainian history for a short time. In the 1980s and until the end of his life, he created neo-romantic pictures in the Art Nouveau style: they are characterized by a symbolic, more decorative manner. In 1994, Viktor Zaretsky was awarded the Shevchenko National Prize. The artist's works are in museums and private collections in Ukraine and abroad. 

The work "Planting Potatoes" is from the early period of Viktor Zaretskyi's art. At first glance, it seems like a sketch for a genre picture, but it is a finished work. At that time, the artist was working on monumental canvases, and in the images of rural women and their hard work in the fields, he was looking for an image of the temperament of the nation. The picture is divided into two worlds: light and dark. In the light – the joy of work and peaceful hustle and bustle; in the dark – the unknown future. 

Vudon Baklytsky (1942 – 1992) is a Ukrainian artist, a nonconformist, and a bright representative of the Kyiv underground of the 1970s. He was a member of the group of artists "New Bent" and the association "Rukh". A recluse in the artistic milieu of Kyiv, he was radically distinguished by his freedom of expression and bright and extraordinary worldview. The artist described his creative output as 2,500 works, of which nearly 700 are written in oil, others are in watercolor, tempera, and author's techniques, 100 works are embossed, and 100 are ceramics, almost 80 works - wood carving. Baklytsky's works can now be seen in the funds of the National Art Museum of Ukraine, the Zimmerli Art Museum in New Jersey, and private collections.

The landscapes of Vudon Baklytsky are a crazy expression of colors, a free interpretation of color and forms. At the same time, they have hidden themes of destruction and creation amidst the surrounding chaos. Curved, pointed forms demonstrate a rejection of traditional reality. The artist contrasts them with pure, free color and seems to warn the viewer against painful mundanity, prompting him to go beyond the standardized framework.

Ihor Podolchak (1962) is a Ukrainian postmodern artist, director, screenwriter, and curator. Addresses the spheres of installation, performance, and video art. The content of his works often combines pleasure and pain, love and play, forbidden desires, debauchery and sincere feelings. The works of Ihor Podolchak are stored in museums and private collections in Ukraine, France, Egypt, Australia, Great Britain, Israel, Germany, Norway, Poland, the USA, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Italy, Cuba, and Macedonia. In 1994, Podolchak represented Ukraine at the Art Biennial in Sao Paulo.

The artist often touches on social, political, and economic topics and satirizes society's flaws. Such is the graphic series "Monuments", where the author reflects on the change in worldview at the turn of the 80s and 90s. A post-apocalyptic composition with elements of decay tells about the loss of former landmarks. The faceless pedestal in the center, which gradually began to disintegrate, symbolizes the collapse of old values and the overthrow of former «heroes» who only hindered the country's development on the way to independence.

Karlo Zvirynskyi (1923 – 1997) is a Ukrainian nonconformist artist, the founder of an underground academy in Lviv (1959-1966), whose methodology was based on reviving modernist artistic practices. In his works, he developed the idea of ​​a syncretic world. With the help of various materials, he created tactile abstraction based on subconscious sensitivity and prayerful meditation. The artist's works are held in museums in Lviv, Kyiv, Khmelnytskyi, Wroclaw, New York, and Toronto, as well as in many private collections.

In the works of Karl Zvirynskyi, the forest is a form of rest, meditation, and reflection. Zvirynskyi practices methods of avant-garde art. He admires the beauty of Ukrainian landscapes, experimenting with the effects of lighting and the plasticity of nature. The main thing in the work is color; the artist skillfully combines saturated bright colors to create a lyrical, emotional image of the Carpathians, with the help of which he reproduces his psychological state and inner desire for freedom.

Maryna Skuhareva (March 2, 1962, Kyiv) is a Ukrainian artist representing the "New Wave". Skuhareva's artistic language is laconic, restrained, and full of symbols. The signature of most works is a small embroidered element. One of the main themes of creativity is a person and its adaptation to the environment. The works often have a feminist voice; the artist addresses the topics of sexuality, loneliness, and depression. Maryna Skugareva – has participated in many Ukrainian and foreign exhibitions. The artist's works are in museums and private collections in Ukraine, Denmark, and Switzerland.

"August 25" is a reflection on the Russian-Ukrainian war. Colorful saturated flowers contrast with the dark background, visualizing the artist's inner state. Flowers are associated with people. Plucked flowers symbolize death and destruction caused by war. Collecting them in a bouquet, the artist strives to preserve the memory of each innocent. Nearby, she embroiders a bird (the author's sign), associating it with the human soul, which has now forever gained peace and free flight. 

Nazar Bilyk (1979) is a Ukrainian sculptor and author of objects for public space. His work explores the connection between person and nature and the environment. He strives to give visual embodiment not to the object but to the space around it and works with a counter-form. Nazar Bilyk has participated in numerous Ukrainian and foreign exhibitions, particularly in Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, Denmark, France, the USA, China, etc. Winner of many competitions, triennials of sculptures, and festivals.

The sculpture "Deepening" continues the theme of thinking about space and its influence on personality. In the center, there is a distinct silhouette of the head and a heavy monolithic mass around which extraneous thoughts and views from outside put pressure on a person, trying to influence. Nazar Bilyk thinks about human freedom and independence from forced ideas. The artist intentionally does not give the work individual features, encouraging viewers to identify the image with themself. 

Oleg Tistol (1960, Mykolaiv region) is a Ukrainian postmodern artist and one of the leaders of the Kyiv association "Natsprom". Works in the fields of painting, installation, graphics, and sculpture. Critics attribute his work to the "Volitional edge of national post-eclecticism", the essence of which is rethinking aesthetic, socio-political stereotypes. He positions his work as "Ukrainian neo-baroque". With characteristic postmodern irony, he exposes the flaws of the colonial past. The artist works in series, each of which represents a certain image symbol. Tistol represented Ukraine at the 22nd Biennale in Sao Paulo (1994) and the Venice Biennale (2001). Oleg Tistol is a participant in numerous Ukrainian and international exhibitions. The artist's works are kept in private collections in Switzerland, Great Britain, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Finland, and Ukraine.

The work «Makonde» is part of the "National Geography" series, in which Oleg Tistol talks about the stereotypical perception of nationalities and nations set by the mass media. The artist uses clippings from old newspapers and magazines and creates collages of the same type- in the center is a typical portrait of a person of one or another nationality, framed by a clichéd ornament. In this way, the artist points out that the mass media distorts our ideas about other nationalities and raises the issue of authenticity. 

Opanas Zalyvakha (1925 - 2007) is a Ukrainian artist, dissident of the Ukrainian Sixtiers movement. The artist's creative language is simple but deep and meaningful. The artist skillfully synthesizes Ukrainian artistic traditions with individual approaches. Zalyvakha comprehends the most challenging categories: the essence of human life, freedom, the eternal search for truth, and rebellion against the system. In his art, he raised the issue of forced resettlement of people, cultural expansion, and the genocide of the Ukrainians in the USSR. He was imprisoned for 5 years for "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda" in a camp in Mordovia, Russia. In 1995, Opanas Zalivakha was awarded the highest state award of Ukraine for developing culture and art - the Taras Shevchenko National Award. The artist's works were exhibited in Ukraine, the USA, Canada and Europe.

The artist reflects on Ukrainian folklore, seeks to find an answer to the question "Who are we?" and finds Ukrainian identity in its reinterpretation. The painting "Buds" is reminiscent of ancient plant ornaments, which our Ukrainian ancestors often used in embroideries or carpets. Opanas Zalyvakha contemplates nature and its colors. The entire canvas space is filled with abundant shoots, but instead of buds, we see the faces of people of different ages. Rhythmically stretching upwards, they appeal to the viewer, encouraging him to find his roots and understand his history. 

Roman Zhuk (1955) – is a well-known figure of the Ukrainian trance avantgarde. He is an artist who reveals his vision and emotionality through images in moody still lifes, magical landscapes, portraits, and candid compositions. The painting style from the beginning of the 1980s is distinguished by the transformation of the traditional genres of still life and portraiture into mysterious stories that reflect life outside the boundaries of reality. Since the beginning of the 2000s, features of "cuteism" and hyperreality have been added to his works as metaphors for mocking the consumerist lifestyle. Roman Zhuk's works have been exhibited worldwide since 1987. The artist's works are in the collections of the Lviv Art Gallery, the Sumy Art Museum, the National Art Museum of Ukraine, the Museum of Modern Fine Arts of Ukraine, etc. Since the mid-1990s, the artist has been living in Amsterdam, Netherlands, but actively participates in the processes of Ukrainian art. 

In "Still Life with Oranges", traditional still life is transformed into a narrative with quotations from the metaphysical painting of Giorgio Morandi. In the works of Roman Zhuk, quotations from European classics are often repeated: this is how he brings old truths into the modern context. Vulva materialized as frigid cold vases with oranges or bananas in paintings filled with saturated colours – one of these ideas. If we put aside the apparent obviousness and simplicity, the true nature of the author is revealed to us.

Stepan Ryabchenko (1987) is a Ukrainian artist who works with various mediums. With the help of bright installations, sculptures, and paintings, the artist creates his universe, inhabited by surreal creatures, fantastic plants, and animals - a reflection of an alternative reality where everything functions according to his rules. Ryabchenko's works are part of many private collections, including the Abramovych Foundation, Artsvit Gallery, Grynyov Art Collection, Korban Art Foundation, Luciano Benetton Collection, Sky Art Foundation, Stedley Art Foundation, Triumph Gallery, Voronov Art Foundation, Lars Malmberg Collection, Luciano Benetton Collection, Firtash Foundation, Arts Trend Company, Zenko Foundation. In 2021, the British publication Electric Artefacts included him in the list of the best digital artists. 

In his creative pursuits, Stepan Ryabchenko studies new computer technologies and their limitless possibilities. "Electronic Marshmallow" is a fragment of the "Electronic Winds" project. As a base of the project, the artist takes ancient Greek myths, translates them into the language of digital technologies, and seeks relations between the real and the virtual. Stepan Ryabchenko creates his mythology of the virtual universe as the only place where you can be truly free.

Tiberiy Silvashi (1947) is a Ukrainian painter who works in the direction of abstract art using his creative method. In the 1970s, the artist began his research into the very essence of the substance of painting and, at the same time, formed the core concept of "chronorealism" for his aesthetics. In the late 1980s – he founded the informal association of abstractionists "Painting Reserve". In the 2000s, he moved to spatial objects – painting and installation projects, exploring the question of the existence of painting outside the boundaries of the picture. The main object of Silvashi's research today is monochrome painting. The artist's works are kept in public and private collections in Munich, Vienna, New Jersey, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, Uzhgorod, Kyiv and other cities in Europe and the USA. 

For Silvashi, painting is a ritual; when applied layer by layer, paint creates a physical substance of fixed time, and his paintings are objects of color. In this painting, a story takes place between the different layers of paint, a dialogue between the color and the painter. The dialogue is embodied in the reflections of light, the shadows that appear due to the texture of dried oil, and the slightest changes in colored matter. Contemplation of this dialogue pulls the viewer out of real-time.

Yuriy Skandakov (1932–2007) was a Ukrainian artist who worked in easel painting, graphics, decorative and applied art, and theatre decoration. The artist's creativity is a kind of improvisation; he created smoothly, was not afraid to experiment, and looked for inner expression in his characters. The artist used color freely, looked for attractive formal solutions and unusual poses, combined decorativeness with sensuality, and created powerful psychological images. During his lifetime, Yuriy Skandakov participated in more than 100 exhibitions, including those in Armenia (1971), Poland (1980), Spain (1981), and Hungary (1983). In 1984, he had a personal exhibition in Lviv. Exhibitions in memory of the artist were held in 2018 - «Soul of Lviv» in the art salon «Veles» and in 2020 – "Return of the Phenomenon" in the "Chocolate House" of the National Museum "Kyiv Art Gallery" in Kyiv.

"Political", 1970 – a reflection of the dissident movement of the 1960s. In the center of the composition, we see a man cornered, confined by the narrow confines of a prison cell. Despite everything, he does not give up and refuses food as a sign of his opposition. Emphasis is placed on his inner freedom, the struggle for personal rights. The man is depicted in an open pose, and his face is directed upwards – towards a single ray of light, which is involuntarily associated with such desired freedom. 

Yaroslav Kachmar (1955) is a Ukrainian graphic artist, painter, sculptor, and curator of international art projects. Creates abstract paintings of monumental size. He conveys existential freedom and mental anguish through plastic forms and shows a dialogue with the universe. In 1980, Yaroslav Kachmar made his debut in Dzintara, Lithuania. In 2021, the first retrospective of the artist's work in Ukraine took place in the halls of the Lviv Art Gallery. The artist also had several personal exhibitions in Lublin and Warsaw in the 1990s. The works of Yaroslav Kaczmar are preserved in Great Britain, Germany, Poland, Canada, the USA, and Switzerland.

Yaroslav Kachmar does not speak directly. His works are shrouded in mystery. This embodies the plane of the artist's philosophical thoughts and observations of life and the world. The lines on the canvases are smooth and meditative. We can read them as the author's stream of consciousness. In "Enigmatic Motif", we see the artist's complex work with color; he creates volume through the play of light and shadow. The artist immerses us in the mystery of birth and death.