Sergei Sviatchenko

SERGEI SVIATCHENKO (1952) is Danish-Ukrainian architect, artist, designer, photographer, painter, poet, curator, author of art films, objects and installations, participant and organizer of many art exhibitions and leader of the Modern Classicist movement (CUAP), founder and curator of the gallery Senko 2002-2009. Now he is founder and creative director of the Triennial for Contemporary Collage Art and The School of LESS in Viborg, Denmark.

He graduated from Kharkov National University of Construction and Architecture in 1975, followed by a PhD “Means of Visual Information in Architecture” from Kyiv National University
of Construction and Architecture in 1986.

From 1990, he has lived and worked in Denmark. Member of the Royal Danish visual artists and graphics (BKF), National Union of Architects of Ukraine. In 2007 Sergei Sviatchenko was awarded the International Yellow Pencil Award/London, (D&AD). Honorary Member and Professor of the Ukrainian Academy of Architecture, 2022. Foreign academician of the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine, 2023

A provocateur in the world of contemporary art, Sviatchenko’s collages, paintings, photography, films and master classes have been exhibited and hold in Denmark, Ukraine,
Germany, Italy, France, England, Canada, and the USA and featured in celebrated magazines such as Dazed & Confused, AnOther, Kilimanjaro, Varoom, Elephant, Blueprint.

As different as the media that Sergei Sviatchenko uses in his artwork are, all of his works, whether collages, paintings,
films or sculptures share a common thread: continuous switching between naturalist impressions and the intangible abstract. The paintings which may at first appear abstract call forth an
association to landscapes with easily recognizable staffage. His paintings are an impressive reflection of this concept. They are full of imagined landscapes that have infiltrated the canvas, ceremoniously drawing the viewer right down with them. The paintings are, in fact, created from up to 20 layers or partial layers, all overlapping to create this impressive effect. The artist wields paintbrush and palette-knife in expressive gestures, interrupted only by momentary pauses, or to view the painting from a distance or add minute details. He selects colors spontaneously, but with a virtuoso flair. He often follows impulses, or spontaneous ideas. Many of his paintings are based on Danish or Ukrainian landscapes, with their dark, thick forests and sudden light wells that fascinated him even as a child.

His paintings also speak of an insistent preoccupation with 19th century painters such as Isaak Levitan, and Ilya Repin. As a young boy, he often spent hours in Kharkiv Art Museum studying the originals with his father, and the fascination holds to this day. The English painter William Turner, whose use of light is unparalleled, has also had a major influence on Sviatchenko. These impressions mix together with Sviatchenko’s ideas on catharsis, the release of inner conflicts, and appear in his paintings as bright surfaces pressed deep into the artwork.

Dr.Silke Krohn, Berlin