About me

Born in Tschernigiw, Ukraine in 1975, I studied painting at the State Academy for Visual Arts with Prof. Mykola Storozhenko until I emigrated to Germany in 1998. Here I studied for five years at the State Art Academy in Münster with Prof. Udo Scheel. Since 2003 I have lived and worked as a free artist in Cologne.

About my art

My search for my own artistic expression is important for me – I search not so much for originality but for honesty and sincerity towards myself and my audience.

In recent years, I worked a lot on issues of the world surrounding me with everyday situations becoming the main object of the image. It‘s not my intent to embellish my environment, but to show the beauty that lies hidden in everyday life. It‘s not about a beauty that distracts from human suffering, but I try to see as beautiful what I love and thereby learn to appreciate. It’s about everyday situations where human warmth and light are hidden, so the “ordinary” also can make you happy and fill you with hope as soon as you recognize the warmth and light within.

For the last two years I have dedicated my work to the commemoration and remembrance of the victims of the Second World War. Thus, I would like to express my indescribable pain I feel when I think about them. Through these images, I express my concern for those I love. It’s about the beauty that is so fragile and defenseless. About human dignity and about human lives that were crushed. To the indescribable pain about the destruction of the living, the loving , the defenseless and the peaceful. It’s about the hopelessness of the fate of the millions of people who have been the victims of this enormous catastrophe of human history. My concern also is about the pain and our inability, to protect ourselves and the ones we love from it, the pain that for all these people we never can do anything, except not to forget. I want to contribute with my pictures to keep the remembrance in our hearts. When working on these pictures I kneel down before all these people. To do so is my inner need and duty.

About my studies

I completed the class of monumental painting and temple culture with Professor Storozhenko. The formation of this class in 1994 was regarded as a special event in the history of the Academy of Arts in Kiev, Ukraine. What was special was the innovative idea of combining the study of the academic – rational with the sacral – irrational, two seemingly non-combinable, diametrically different directions. The program consisted of academic training, based not only on Russian art, but on the artists of the Italian and German Renaissance on the one hand, and the sacred culture of religious painting on the other. Religious painting was done by learning the ancient techniques and by copying the icons of Ukrainian, Russian and Byzantine religious art. This played an important role in the intellectual and professional development of students. We were taught responsibility for our art; taught to think ” sacral”. Art and its development became “sacred” for the students as it meant love and devotion.

Model drawing and painting and the teaching of anatomy and perspective also played an important role in the study and were understood to be important and indispensable foundations of art education. Even academic drawing and painting were experienced differently in this class than in others at the academy. We experienced the very nature of the inside and not the outside.

Discussion of various styles and eras of art enriched the students and enabled them to think for themselves, to take their own decisions and to find their artistic freedom.

Awards

2014
Certificate of Excellence, PALM ART AWARD 2014, www.palm-art-award.com/winners2014.html

2007
Promotion prize Odenthal, Odenthal

1998
Award of the Examination Board of the National Academy of Fine Arts, Kiev for undergraduate work , Kiev

1997
State Prize of the Government Presidium , Kiev