a. statement :: born in USSR, made in USA                                         

 

I am a multidisciplinary artist working in both traditional and new media including series of large scale - paper-cut abstractions, series of large drawings in soft pastel, digital rendering, 3D printed & assembled light-sculpture.  When I was about 10 years old, I attended an art school for youth.  It truly was the most wonderful experience culturally, technically, art-historically.  I fell in love with every aspect of art-making.  I quickly discovered that this was the space which allowed assumptions and imagination to reign free, this was uncontested space for natural passion.  

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I am in immigrant, a refugee.  I was born and raised in Ukraine and landed in the United States when I was 16 years old.  As a human being I am deeply troubled by many things: current state of politics, local homelessness, incessant destruction of the environment, kids in refugee camps worldwide.  Artistically I’m influenced by such brave and visionary artists as Malevich, Tatlin, Lissitsky - XX-th century Russian Avant Garde. I am influenced by western modernism, specifically by Henri Matisse, and his wholesome vision of the figure.  I’m greatly influenced by a number of American artists, among them are our contemporaries such as Kara Walker, Barbara Kruger. Walker’s complex vision of the world and portrayal of it in black and white, in a cut-out form - is greatly inspirational to me.  Barbara Kruger’s one liners which include a large political universe in their “oversimplified” presentation - are a great influence to me.

 

My work is personal yet, like a sponge, it wants to absorb various influences to vocalize itself in a unique XXI-st century voice.  I see myself as a minimalist using only as much as needed to convey an idea. My interest lies in perceiving our environment as a constructed one, where my re-invented landscape becomes a new reality.  It is then deconstructed, flattened and re-assembled. Occasionally a human figure or multiple inhabit a given artwork. Landscapes, and figure in the landscape are constructs for a vision of a place, for a vision of a space, moment in time for human interaction.  Layering meaning is always a thrill. Layering it through exposing dualities, visualizing the invisible, visualizing creation and destruction, taking familiar & assigning it a new meaning.