Vladyslav was born in 1996 in Ukraine, and lives in Kyiv, working in visual art with oil, acrylic, enamel, silkscreen printing, aerosol, mixed media, paper, graphite, and photography.
“In my childhood, I was surrounded by factories, a railway, an unfinished subway, and many other industrial objects. Even after I grew up and moved to a different city, I wanted to find locations to which I got used, to their atmosphere. Before the war started, my actual project was a large series of Kyiv subways. At the moment this series is transformed into the theme of a subway as a shelter place, a safe zone from rockets and explosions. The war has changed the perception of many things for Ukrainians. I’d like to show how this experience changed what and why I depict.”
Sadly, due to the war, Vladyslav was not allowed to leave the country, but the audience will see his art in the residency exhibition. He will present a series of drawings titled “War Views” (2022).
„When the familiar way of life is disrupted, the next hour is what the word “future” now contains, and you don’t know where you will be tomorrow, a small sheet of paper and graphite becomes the technique that can convey the moment. One sheet instead of a canvas captures a moment and becomes an act of survival. The darkness of the graphite corresponds to the narrative of this diary – it is the dust of the roads, black smoke over the houses against the background of a cloudy white sky, the dirt of early spring, and the earth with craters from shells. Black-and-white thinking seizes the sovereignty of the mind, and this new matching medium helps to keep the diary and carry it with you. A big part of the series is landscapes of the earth taken from the sky above the enemy, and the target in the middle becomes the main axis. Air raid sirens or danger does not stop the process and it continues underground, just like this series, this journey from light to dark and from black to white continues as long as the war goes on.”
▶ LANDSCAPE FORMATIONS residency programme, July 2024