Oleksandr Balbyshev

Oleksandr Balbyshev is a contemporary Ukrainian artist who works primarily in oil paint on canvas and experiments with found objects. Oleksandr's art has two very different main directions, each representing the essential side of his identity. Firstly, Oleksandr, as open gay, using art practices, tries to understand the nature of male identity and the stigma of the male nude, explore the slippage of masculinity, and redefine what it means to be male. Oleksandr makes vivid oil paintings, like protest posters, with many quotes from art history. His works don't hide their homoeroticism and challenge the prevailing outdated morality that rejects male nudity. Secondly, as a Ukrainian, Oleksandr reinterprets iconic symbols of the USSR, the terrorist empire that occupied his motherland for seven decades. The artist tries to overcome the traumatic historical experience of his country by transforming the sinister shards of the USSR, including old portraits of Lenin and other Soviet leaders, into something funny and not scary. Oleksandr ultimately achieves an artistic aesthetic marked by powerful pops of color, mystical surrealist elements, kitsch decorative qualities, and absurd aspects reminiscent of Dadaism.