I've been drawing since I was a child, my parents left me with a big stack of papers and I sat and drew all day. At the age of 12, I started doing graffiti - at that time it was a real epidemic (2008). Western culture has come to us for a long time, and in general we learned something about graffiti and rap through the Internet. All my childhood was spent on the street amid graffiti, rap and boyhood. it lasted for several years, I became more interested in street art. At that time we had a computer game Mark Ecko's Getting Up - it tells the story of American graffiti and street art. At the time, I was interested in Banksy, Shepard Fairey and other artists represented in this game. I really liked the aesthetics of New York and the street art of that time.

In 2014, an event happened that changed my whole life and work. I was born and raised there in the Crimea. In 2014, Russia annexed Crimea and I was forced to flee to Ukraine under the control of Kyiv. A few months later, Russia launched a war in eastern Ukraine. These events deeply impressed me, became a deep trauma for me, which eventually changed life and my work. For a few more years I continued my artistic studies at a college in Lviv, later a master's degree in Lviv and at an academy in Poland in the small town Opole. My artwork was educational - the kind that students do. There is one event that activated me as an artist and I started doing what I do now: while studying in Poland we were told to bring family photos (paper) - it was a graphic design study. But because this was my second big move in my life, I had no art materials left, no physical items from the Crimea. So I started drawing my story and the story of my family, it was a work of my own trauma and the beginning of my current artistic style. Because I didn't have any art supplies, I went to the store to buy a stack of printer paper and a red one with a blue pen. That was 4 years ago, now the red color is with me. At that time, I made a biographical project about my family and the occupation of Crimea and eastern Ukraine (2018-2020). in early 2021, I realized that I had to move on in my work. My project Decommunization was born. (These are just the bright, colorful images you may have seen last on my page. This is a socio-political project aimed at gradually rethinking the Soviet heritage and our country's place in the world. I realized that people don't like to look at dark colors, sad images and they don't want a layer of moralizing from above, so I decided to make bright, cheerful images with an absurd plot at first glance, all to draw the viewer's attention to the image. Since I already had a street background and some European education, I returned to the visual style of the Soviet Union in my work, disguising my work as something familiar to all people - the Soviet monumental art.

An important narrative of the Soviet Union was the mixing of all peoples and nations into one gray mass, the idea was to deprive people of their identity, to make all the occupied territories "one people." On the contrary, I tried to find my identity with my work. Since I had a psychological trauma related to the war, and the war in eastern Ukraine has not stopped for the last 8 years, my goal was to show strong characters among ordinary people, to show that it is normal to resist aggression and that you can resist any aggression.

Now, during the active phase of the war, my work has become a bit simpler and shows events very straightforwardly, now is the time for quick decisions, no time to think

With best regards, Denys.

Education:

2018-2020 Master's degree from the Department of Art of Opole University
2017-2019 Master's degree Ukrainian Academy of Printing Department of Design
2015-2017 Bachelor's degree from Lviv College of Decorative and Applied Arts named after Trush "Monumental Painting"
2014-2015 diploma of Lviv College of Decorative and Applied Arts named after Trush - specialty "Monumental Painting"
2011-2014 Crimean Art School named after Samokish specialty "easel painting"
2015-18 certificate program in icon painting of the Ukrainian Catholic University

Projects and exhibitions:


2022 – participant of the joint exhibition "Muses are not silent" exhibition curator Pavlo Gudimov (Powder Tower, Lviv, Ukraine)
2022 - participant of the joint exhibition Uart + The art of peace (Houston, TX, USA)
2022 - participant of the joint exhibition "Artfront" project of the gallery Dzyga.
2022 - participant of a joint exhibition at the One art space gallery (NY USA)
2022 - participant in the joint exhibition "Ukrainian Collage" at the Khmelnytsky Regional Art Museum

2021 - exposition of the project "Decommunization" (Art Center Dzyga, Apartment 35, Lviv, Ukraine)
2021 - created murals "Decommunization" in gallery 4 \ 8 (Lutsk, Ukraine)
2021 - created the installation "Perekotypole" within the project "Steppe" project curator Volodymyr Kaufman (Gonchar Museum Kyiv, Ukraine)
2021 - painted a bus within the festival "Avantard" X "Alarm" (Palace of Arts, Lviv)
2021 - participation in the street art festival "Alarm" (Slavsko, Ukraine)
2021 - joint exhibition "Stereotype" in Ukrainian house (Kyiv, Ukraine)
2021 - joint exhibition in Porokhova vezha (Lviv, Ukraine)
2021 - project "Decommunization" (personal exhibition) Museum of Contemporary Ukrainian Art Korsakiv (Lutsk, Ukraine)

2020 - installation in the Dzyga Gallery within the Avangard Festival (Lviv, Ukraine)
2020 - mural at the Lviv Street Gallery within the project Equilibrium
2020 - 10*4-meter canvas for the Museum of Contemporary Ukrainian Art Korsakіv (Lutsk, Ukraine)
2020 - Biography project in Dzyga Gallery (Lviv, Ukraine)
2020 - 2019 - 2018 - 2017 - participation in the graffiti festival Alarm (Lviv, Lutsk, Odessa, Ukraine)
2020 - joint exhibition in the Street gallery Injection (Lviv, Ukraine)

2019 - participation in the project To be ruined the art of transition Jam factory/Farbovanyi lys (Lviv, Ukraine)
2019 - Biography project within the framework of the II Biennial of Young Art (Kharkiv, Ukraine)
2019 - joint exhibition Transfer przestrzeni Aneks Gallery (Opole, Poland)
2019 - joint exhibition Illustragan galleria MBP (Opole, Poland)
2019 - personal exhibition Biography 4\8 gallery (Lutsk, Ukraine)
2019 - participant of the joint exhibition (P)Arty Hard (Wroclaw, Poland)
2019 - personal exhibition Biography in A4 gallery (Opole, Poland)
2019 - created an animated film 2027 (Lviv, Ukraine)

2018 - curator of the art residence in Zhovkva (Ukraine)
2018 - Cube project in Zhovkva Castle (Ukraine)
2018 - personal exhibition Lost Paradise in Bunkermuse Gallery (Ternopil, Ukraine)
2018 - project within the Workshop of the City Street-art on electric transport (Lviv)

2017 - Labyrinth project at the Rema factory with Nestor Lisovsky (Lviv, Ukraine)
2017 - personal exhibition Lost Paradise in the gallery Farbovanyi Lys (Lviv, Ukraine)
2017 - mural New Life for a tram stop as part of the City Workshop (Lviv, Ukraine)

2016 - resident of the gallery Farbovanyi lys (Lviv, Ukraine)
2016 - Gallery under the bridge mural triptychs Saints (Lviv, Ukraine)
2016 - mural Lost Elysium in Lviv Street Gallery (Ukraine)
2016 - mural in the Lesya Ukrainka Theater as part of the Lesya Theater residence (Lviv, Ukraine)
2016 - resident of Galicia Cult - wall painting at the Turbo Atom plant (Kharkiv, Ukraine)
2016 - participation in the joint exhibition Street Alphabet (Lviv, Kyiv, Odessa, Lutsk…

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