I graduated from the faculty of book graphics at Kyiv Polytechnic (NTUU “KPI”), where I studied academic painting, and then spent eight years working in publishing. Painting stayed on the sidelines all that time, until one piece — made in the spirit of “I could do that too!” — brought it back to the centre: a copy of an icon of St. Mykolay on a wooden panel with gold leaf. It reminded me that the skill and the joy of the process, built up over years of working with paint, had not gone anywhere — and from then on painting gradually became my main pursuit.

My passion is the tradition of the old masters. I study their language of light, form and composition and adapt and interpret it in my own paintings. Classical training gives me the tools, but every new canvas is an attempt to find my own hand inside that tradition. That’s how my series took shape: landscapes and portraits painted for a solo exhibition at the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra; family and commissioned portraits; animals in the styles of various masters, where I have fun collaging the scenes.

The start of the war and the move to Lisbon changed life itself. To make reality a little easier to bear, I wanted to paint something entirely detached, sweet and pleasant. Around that time artificial intelligence joined my tools — first as a way to explore a separate virtual world, then as hints for composition, light and colour, sometimes as the co-author of whole series. But like any instrument, AI can be used often or set aside entirely. There was a small series on the war, built from fragments of a reality impossible not to paint, but one that is too painful. Right now I’m working on two series: one is large-format portraits of defining figures of the last century, created in collaboration with the collector. The other is figures and studies — for now the closest to working with imagination that I have, and what I plan to develop.

I live and work in Lisbon. For acquiring works or collaboration, get in touch — I’ll be glad to talk.