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BIO

Vynnyk-Shtep (creative pseudonym) was born in Poltava in 1969. He graduated from the Novovodolaz School of Arts in the Kharkiv Region, the Kharkiv State Art School’s art-pedagogical department (KhDHU) and the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts (KhDADM). With personal exhibitions showcased in state and private museums and galleries in Kharkiv, Kyiv, Lviv, and Odesa, he has also actively participated in collective exhibitions.

Specializing in landscape, portrait, and plot composition, Vynnyk-Shtep explores various directions and techniques in fine art, including graphics, sculpture and art-textiles. Engaged in teaching activities, he brings his artistic insights to art therapy classes with students, employing his own methods in this field. He is also an active participant in the outdoor movement in Ukraine.

Story of experience of risk, relocation and/or exile

Artist’s account: My daughter has a disability with schizophrenia and is very afraid of various sounds reminiscent of explosions that she heard in the first days of the war in Kharkiv. Therefore, I, as a father, decided to leave the Kharkiv region and immediately move to the city of Lviv, where she and I received the status of internally displaced persons (IDPs). We lived in a small art studio, which was provided to us free of charge for the first four months. I have two students who I teach painting and I still take part in plein air events and art residencies, periodically undergoing treatment in day hospitals.

Projects created during the residency period

One of the projects Vynnyk-Shtep worked on during his residency was a series of paintings titled “Childhood, sleep and milk (Plots of peaceful life)”.

Vynnyk-Shtep: On summer and autumn days, it seems like something is spilled in nature, maybe love or maybe some feeling of sweet pleasure. The color is white and so is everything around it. Maybe these are days of dizziness when you are not yourself and it is not only about nature, landscapes, or people. It is something incomprehensible, intoxicating and viscous. It is like a dream in which I fly and swim as if in a fog, delusional. Where I love someone but I can’t understand who. Peaceful rural life together with its inhabitants who seem to be immersed in this white mirage of everyday life.

Another project he worked on was titled “Meeting”.

Vynnyk-Shtep: “Meeting” is about two lovers who were brought together by fate. That sweet flowering period, when two become one. When you feel that love is in the air and want to hug the whole world. When the least you can do for a loved one is to give a flower. The dark background is chosen for the intensity of the feeling of love. The white light of love emerges from the darkness of everyday life.

This programme is organized by Perpetuum Mobile (PM) as part of the Artists at Risk (AR)-Network in partnership with UNESCO and with the support of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and Teiger Foundation.