Illustration

"The first snow in Bauhaus"

2020, canvas, oil180 x 150 cm

Sviatchenko is a representative of the Ukrainian New Wave, that arose in Ukraine up through the 1980s. At the end of 1990, the artist moved to Denmark having been awarded an art scholarship, and in the same year, he began to participate in solo and group exhibitions. With one foot in his homeland Ukraine and the other in Denmark, Sviatchenko combines the Eastern Constructivism and photomontage traditions with Bauhaus aesthetics as well as Western Pop Art, Abstract Expressionism and rock music.

Anatoly Kryvolap

About the artist

Sergei Sviatchenko (b. 1952) – a Danish-Ukrainian architect, artist, curator and photographer. He is one of today's influential collage artists, and his oeuvre cuts through the boundaries of traditional and contemporary visuals, merging pop culture with politics, history, science and architecture. In 2007 Sergei Sviatchenko was awarded the International Yellow Pencil Award, London (D&AD).

A provocateur in the world of contemporary art, his collages and paintings have been exhibited in Denmark, Germany, Italy, France, England, Canada, and the USA and featured in celebrated magazines such as Dazed & Confused, AnOther, Kilimanjaro, Varoom, Elephant, This is a magazine, Rojo, Viewpoint and Blueprint.

“In our world of visual overload, Sviatchenko stands out as an artist, who reduces instead of adds. In 2004 Sviatchenko introduced the artistic strategy of deconstruction called ‘Less’, where by adding a maximum of three elements, he would change the reading of a given image. Sviatchenko’s ‘Less’ strategy is one his most original contributions to international collage art.” – Christian Kortegaard Madsen, Curator and Museum Director (Denmark)