Vasiliy Ryabchenko
Born 1954 in Odessa, Ukraine
© Photo from the artist's family archive

Vasiliy Ryabchenko is a Ukrainian painter, works in graphic and photography art, author of objects and installations. One of the key figures in contemporary Ukrainian art, and the New Ukrainian Wave. The artist’s works are distinguished by a synthesis of “Western” and “Eastern” approaches to painting with almost “English” aristocratic asceticism of the language, organically flowing into the Chinese “dance of the brush”. Restraint is balanced by creative freedom and lightness.
Vasiliy Ryabchenko is one of the first in Ukraine who started working in the installation genre. Since the early 1970s, he has also been actively experimenting with photography. At first, the main subjects were candid still-lifes of household chores, later – photo improvisations with the participation of objects and the human body, in the layout of which the artist uses the “voidness” and asymmetry inherent in the Eastern tradition. Vasiliy Ryabchenko often uses his photographs in installations and collages, as well as material for paintings and creating digital graphics.

"To give an assessment of the Time in which I live is meaningless for me and in my opinion leads to the appearance of the unproductive activity or vice versa to inaction, that distracts from LIFE itself, in which we are temporarily present, and the fact of our presence in time is beautiful. As for the situation with COVID-19, which stands out as something extraordinary, something like that already was and will be - this is a constant component of the time stream. At this time, as always, it’s very important for me to deal with myself, my beloved and closest ones — for this I live and do my job. Now is the time for this."

Vasiliy Ryabchenko
Odessa, Ukraine. April 25, 2020

Repackaging (2020)

160 x 100 cm, digital print and oil on canvas (painting), 160 x 37 cm, stump, metal, concrete, expanded clay (installation)

Prayer (2020)

180 x 160 cm, digital print and oil on canvas

Copperas (2010)

135 х 100 cm, digital print and mixed media on canvas

The Flood (1990)

160 x 180 cm, oil on canvas

Grace Refusal (1989)

200 х 300 cm, oil on canvas

Undecipherable characters shore (1989)

200 х 400 cm (diptych), oil on canvas