Myroslav Yagoda

Myroslav Yagoda (1957 – 2018) is a Ukrainian artist and a prominent figure of the Lviv underground in the 1980s and 1990s. He worked in the fields of painting, graphics, and scenography. He was also engaged in poetry and drama. His work is characterized by a sharp reflection on reality, a tragic worldview, and an expressive psychedelic writing style. During his lifetime, he had about 17 personal exhibitions in Ukraine, Poland, and Austria. In 2019, a retrospective exhibition, «Myroslav Yagoda», was held at the Borys Voznytskyi National Art Gallery in Lviv. In 2020, the artist's works were exhibited in Kyiv at the National Art Museum in the "Я + GOD = A" exhibition.

Separated from society, Myroslav Yagoda turns his canvases into a kind of diary of the apocalypse, in which he reflects on momentary states of revelation and sudden emotional impulses. The artist's works are a kind of art therapy that deals with one's uncontrollable pain. The artist is not interested in the perishable; he seeks to depict the life of the spirit beyond the physical world. The characters of his paintings are unfortunate creatures who have faced horror. The viewer is afraid but, at the same time, empathizes with their pain. Such is the canvas "Grass". At first glance, the grass is associated with something calm and peaceful. However, we can never know what the tall, tangled stems hide or what danger may be hidden behind them. The same goes for a person, and it's emotions. Myroslav Yagoda thinks about the human subconscious, its alter-ego: about fears and experiences that can hide deep inside but at any moment come out.