Painter, graphic artist
Born in Odesa region in 1968, Volodymyr Kozhukhar graduated from K.D. Ushynskyi South Ukrainain National Pedagogical University, Painting and Graphics faculty (1996)
For more than ten years Volodymyr cooperated with the Regina — one of the leading Moscow galleries.
Since the late 1990s, he has developed his own line of painting. His early works can be recognized by provocative subjects with prominent ‘pulsing nerve of the common unconscientious’ where the severity and violence became the norm of reality which promises anything but boring life.
In the early 2000s the subject of the artist’s line changed giving way to urbanistic motives and landscapes where he presented the themes of memory and nostalgia. The My USSR and Forest projects outlined the eventless everyday life – houses, streets, people, abandoned bus stops, unremarkable outskirts of cities.
Volodymyr concentrates on the subjects which often fall apart from our usual field of vision. His compositions create the impression of a picture accidentally taken from the stream of perception or a moment caught from the window of a train. The manner of painting is light, sketchy, with typical for it a bit dimmed coloration. Myroslav Kulchytskyi, an art historian and artist from Odesa, defined the method as follows: “The visual imagery of Kozhukhar is a shot-by-shot breakdown of reality where each shot is a timely stopped flow of ‘common’ images. The flow is stopped the way, and at the right time and place when these images reveal different sense. Through the illusion of spontaneity, it constantly feels the involvement of a film editor who professionally builds the whole story of the film …”
Volodymyr Kozhukhar lives and works in Odesa.
