Stolbchenko Hryhorii

Stolbchenko Hryhorii

Hryhorii was born into the family of a military officer and a teacher in Krasnokutsk urban-type settlement, Kharkiv oblast. The whole family was creative. His parents sang in the choir, and his grandmother was a known embroideress in the town. Hryhorii lived in the far north, in the Kola Peninsula, for some time where he was forever captivated by the unusual nature.

This captivation would later underlie his plots and artistic images.

After returning to Ukraine, he finished Art School No. 5 in Kyiv, and then the Kyiv Art Industrial Vocational Collage by the specialty of an art designer in 1986.

Hryhorii “Hrusha” Stolbchenko was a sculptor and graphic artist. His artistic manifesto was the following: “Art must not be beautiful. It doesn’t owe anything to anybody anyway.” That is why Stolbchenko’s works received very controversial feedback – unusual esthetics is attractive and repulsive at the same time. The painter described it as the combination of naïve with expressionism elements. “There are two directions in my art. One is cheerful, close to comic books and folklore <…>. The other one is Pankevych culture that influenced me a lot, just like the music of Sex Pistols, <…> DDT, Zvuki Mu <…>.”

He died in 2016.