Public Art

Maker Details

I was born in Kiev to a father who was an architect and painter, and to a mother who was a graphic designer. As a child, I recall joining my father in the ateliers of friends and colleagues, where there was a lot of smoking, coffee drinking, and arguing about modern Western art, which was prohibited in the USSR. As I grew up in an artistic environment, it was inevitable that I should begin painting at an early age.

To my mind, being a painter meant freedom and rebellion. Fortunately, this kept me away from typical teenage problems, as I was too busy creating art. At the age of 12, I began attending evening painting classes at an art school after my regular daytime studies. I later enrolled in the National Academy of Arts and Architecture in the sculpture department. The school was a figurative Soviet school with a focus on propagandistic monuments.

After “Perestroika”, Ukrainian independence, and the fall of the iron curtain, many European exhibitions made clear that the art world was different from the one we were taught about at the conservative academy.

After graduating with a master’s degree in fine arts, I progressively opted for a more abstract and less figurative approach to sculpture.

Although the founders of abstraction, Kasimir Malevich and sculptor Aleksandr Arkhipenko, were born and worked in my native city, they were deliberately forgotten and prohibited during Soviet times.

While I spent a good deal of time doing different things: theatre art direction, cinema direction, creating music and promotional videos, and filming documentaries, I always return to my first love of sculpting.

A trip to Rome in 2004 led me to make sculpture and painting my first priority. From 1999 to 2011, I was a member of the National Professional Union of Painters of Ukraine (a youth organization).

I am currently a member of the Professional Artists’ Union, which is affiliated with the International Associate of Art IAA/UNESCO Ukraine.
Since 2008, I have been a member of the International Association for Monumental Sculpture Events, Italy.

Since 2007, I have participated in more in more than 60 international sculpting symposiums, festivals, and exhibitions in Ukraine, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, the Czech Republic ,Turkey, the United States , China, Japan , Argentina, Syria, Israel, Iran, Poland, Norway, Cyprus, Taiwan, Luxemburg, Belgium, Azerbaijan, and Chile.

Travel has always had a great impact on my work and mindset. I have met many interesting people and visited hundreds of exhibitions and dozens of museums worldwide.