Oleg Tistol

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.