SaveLENIN-MARILYN
| Year of creation | 2018 |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | 110 W × 110 H × 2.5 D cm |
| Type of art | painting |
| Style | pop art |
| Genre | portrait |
| Materials | oil, canvas |
Description of the Artwork “LENIN-MARILYN”
This is an oil painting on the found soviet-era portrait of Lenin. The canvas is a little damaged. Decades after the collapse of the USSR, on the territory of the former Soviet republics, it is still possible to find a lot of artefacts imbued with the propaganda of that era. All forms of art were forcibly subordinated to the advancement of the ideology of Marxism-Leninism. Everything that did not fit into this paradigm was eradicated. Portraits of Lenin occupy a special place among those artefacts. Moreover, the number of the leader’s image created over the seven decades amazes. All this was done to the detriment of the free evolution of art and has stopped its development for more than half a century. We will never know what the art of the peoples of the USSR could look like, if it was not oppressed. We can only look at what artists in the free world were doing at this time. Namely to this goal, a series of works by Oleksandr is subordinated, who refines the found oil portraits of Lenin of Soviet times, combining them with famous works of Western artists.
Oleksandr Balbyshev, Ukraine
Oleksandr Balbyshev was born in 1985 in Ukraine, one of the biggest Soviet Republics. After graduating from The Prydniprovska State Academy of Civil Engineering and Architecture in 2012, he was working in the sphere of architecture and design. But he was disappointed in the chosen field. So in 2016 he quit to become an artist. Oleksandr currently lives and works in Dnipro, Ukraine. Male sexuality and sensuality are the most important themes in Oleksandr’s art. But it's a means rather than an end in itself. Artist wants viewer to see the realm of ideas in faces and bodies not only a realistic image of a human. He tries to combine in his paintings realities, as visions of worlds within worlds. They show us an image of ourselves, and also hint that there is more to us than we know. Another important part of Oleksandr’s art is to modify old Soviet-era portraits of Lenin. In 2015 the Ukrainian government banned all symbols and images associated with the USSR. But numerous oil portraits, sculptures, monuments and other images of Lenin began to be removed from public places decades before the "decommunization laws". What happened to the hundreds of thousands portraits of former Soviet leader? Many of them are already destroyed. Some of them had been left in attics or basements. Oleksandr is looking for all these forgotten things and giving them a new life. His paintings are in private collections in USA, Canada, Great Britain, Germany, Netherlands, France, Italy, Spain, Greece, Sweden, Finland, South Africa, Thailand, Australia, Mexico and Ukraine.