Still life in the landscape

Bogdan Zadorozhniy, Ukraine

Bogdan Zadorozhniy, born in 1966 in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 1992 finished studies in Kyiv State Institute of Art. His father, Ivan-Valentyn Zadorozhniy (1921-1988) was famous Ukrainian painter, sculptor and monumentallist. Paintings of Bogdan Zadorozhniy are distinguished by bright coloristic, interesting and original compositional moves. His works remind of influences of informal art of mid 20th century – Franz Kline, Fernand Léger. At the same time, presence of decorative elements and Ukrainian ethnic motifs in his works, brings him close to Oleksandr Bogomazov, Mykhailo Boichuk, Maria Pryimachenko. Using traditional techniques for painting (canvas, oil), and also traditional plots (landscape, still life), he, at the same time, implements in his works fantastic, sometimes psychedelic images and symbols, and mundane and common-world objects obtain the fairy-tale features. Behind the flat, somewhere markedly folkish primitive form, one can clearly see the stained-glass technique, through which the light of color streams. If Marshall MacLuhan said that "medium is the message", then in Zadorozhniy's works the color itself becomes meaningful, uniting archetypical and civilizational, modern; revealing on canvas the spirit of nature and spirit of people. Paintings of Bogdan Zadorozhniy takes a visible place as a part of Ukrainian bigger "artistic style".