Oleksandr Balbyshev is an experienced Ukrainian painter who has exhibited his work nationally. Balbyshev ultimately achieves an artistic aesthetic marked by powerful pops of color, mystical surrealist elements, decorative qualities of kitsch and absurd aspects reminiscent of dadaism. We took five minutes with him to discover more about his artistic practice and influences.
Hello Oleksandr! When did you know you wanted to be an artist?
For as long as I can remember, I was drawn to the visual arts. At 8 years old I asked my parents to buy me oil paints. I already had a lot of materials for creativity: watercolors, gouache paints, pastels, pencils and felt-tip pens, but for some reason I wanted to paint with oil paints. The technology of oil painting was practically unknown to me, but the process seemed almost mystical and mysteriously majestic. There are good reasons why many of the great paintings of the past are done in oil paints. It seems to me that the oil steals a piece of soul from the portrayed subjects. And in that way, the artwork becomes alive.
I have been doing art professionally since 2016. After I received my bachelor’s degree of architecture in 2012, I worked quite successfully as a designer. But two years later, in connection with the revolutionary events in my country, a serious financial crisis began. My work ceased to bring an acceptable income, and I decided to change activities. So I became an artist, for which I will always be grateful to fate.
Can you talk about your artistic influences and other artists you are most inspired by?
A huge influence on me was the works of Andy Warhol. If his art was a response to the overproduction of consumer products in the countries of the Western world, then my work is largely due to the overproduction of ideology in the USSR at the same time, which resulted in numerous images of Lenin. Despite the fact that the USSR has long ceased to exist, its ideology still lives in the minds of millions of people, and it will not go anywhere if it is not remade and thereby overcome.
I am very attracted to the kitsch aesthetics of Jeff Koons and his bold work with images of mass culture. Among my favorite painters it is also worth highlighting Vincent Van Gogh, Yayoi Kusama, and David Hockney.
Do you prefer to work alone or collaborate with others?
I prefer to work alone, because I really appreciate the freedom to independently solve all the details of my work. However, I do not exclude the possibility of cooperation when working on some short project.
Can you tell us about a project you’re currently working on?
I usually work on several projects at once. When I feel that some project has tired me, I switch to another. This allows me not to go in cycles and generate fresh ideas.
One of my oldest projects that I have been working on since 2016 is called “Metamorphoses of Lenin.” This project consists in creatively processing original portraits and sculptures of Lenin made in the Soviet era. I paint on top of old portraits of Lenin fragments from famous paintings or drip paint on them, cut the canvases into pieces and glue them in a chaotic manner. I paint the sculptures in funny colors and glue them with various objects. As a result of this artistic gesture, I erase the propaganda and ideological meanings of the images, at the same time endowing them with decorative qualities. However, with all the fun of this manipulation, the artworks acquire new meanings, an antinomical combination of play and seriousness, prompting the viewer to go beyond the accepted paradigm.
In 2019, I began work on a project whose goal is to raise the topic of discrimination of the male naked body in art in recent centuries. About 30 years ago, a group of feminist artists named Guerrilla Girls decided to find out the ratio of male and female nudes presented on canvases exhibited at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. It turned out that male nudes are only 15%. And it seems that today the situation has not changed much. On online galleries where I sell my art, male nudes are about 20%. The roots of this phenomenon, in my opinion, are very deep in our culture and require additional study. This is the topic of my new project, in which I am trying to integrate the sensual beauty of a male body with world-famous paintings like Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, and Claude Monet’s Waterlilies. This is a kind of reflection on how art of the last centuries could have been if the male body had not been discriminated against.
What do you think you would you be doing if you weren’t an artist?
If I were not an artist, I would probably become a physicist. I would study the world of elementary particles and try to uncover the secrets of the Universe. Or I would become a human rights activist, like Erin Brockovich. I would try to make this world a little fairer and kinder.
Have you found any other artists on Singulart whose work you admire?
There are so many talented artists on Singulart. I like the bright portraits of Jonathan Mcafee, the funny paintings of Daniela Adamez, the mysterious artworks of Maxim Fomenko, and the sweet portraits of Irene Raspollini. The list could be extended indefinitely.
What advice could you give to young artists starting out?
To some extent, I am also a beginner painter, and I don’t know much about the world of art. But one thing I knew for sure: you should not listen to the wise advice of others- you need to go after your dream, believe in it, and everything will work out.
