Born in 1962, Oleksii Apollonov has been one of the leading artists of the Kyiv school of painting. He graduated from the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture in 1986. Since 2012, Apollonov has been a founding member of the Blue October creative team. He has regularly exhibited solo in Kyiv since 1997 and participated in group exhibitions in Ukraine, Lithuania, Poland, France, Georgia, Switzerland, Greece, and Bulgaria. His works have found their way to the collections of the Kyiv Museum of Russian Art and the Art Museum of Zaporizhia. Apollonov lives in Kyiv and is married to fellow artist Olena Pryduvalova.
EDUCATION
“I did not find it difficult to come to art, because my father was an artist. I spent my childhood surrounded by his works. I remember his basement studio, in that old Stalinist building near the glass plant in Vasylkivska Street. I had volunteered to attend a children’s studio, and Anatolii Postoliuk gave me free rein there,” Apollonov recalled. “The dad, for his part, prepared me a little too. I attended a comprehensive school for four years before moving to the Republican Secondary Art School (RSAS) in grade five, and nearly fainted with joy on coming there: after all those formations, Young Pioneer ties and marches on the parade ground, I found an incredible freedom reigning in my new school. Seven years of studies went by as an undiluted pleasure. Our teachers were Olena Kravchenko, Yevhen Semenov, and Yevhen Zviezdov. On entering the Art Institute, we got to Viktor Shatalin’s class, and he never put any undue pressure on us, so we felt perfectly well for all six years spent there, even though we painted mostly for the drawer. We did not know that freedom would come as soon as the next decade, but still found the inner strength to create works which had no chance whatsoever to get exhibited. That is, for all the Brezhnev era censorship, our school was a healthy institution. Of course, the Art Council sessions were full of criticism, we often got our works marked F or D, but only outright hooligans ever got expelled. Meanwhile, following the collapse of the USSR, people kept working just as they had done before. I see no turning point in our worldviews. Everything got its shape back then already.”
FINISHING STROKES
“Having completed a series of paintings, one wants to make a step aside or even backwards. Whether one has become a stronger professional, only the next series will show. When preparing an exhibition, one goes through a rebirth. Attempts at rational self-analysis are useless. One thing is for sure: repeating oneself is not interesting.
“It is one’s experience that tells one when a painting is completed. One can get started and bring it to completion at once. On the other hand, one can work for a month and see it changed beyond recognition. Plein air sessions are nice in that one is painting incessantly, and it flows like a stream during such events. Perfection does not depend on time spent at work. Nobody cares about how much time one spent creating a painting, nobody at all. All your feelings mean nothing. The only important thing is the end result.
THE CYCLE “BIOFIELD” INCLUDES COMPOSITIONS WHICH ARE SIMILAR TO A SAINT’S LIFE AS IT IS PICTURED IN ICONS, AND THIS METHOD IS KNOWN IN MODERN ART
“I do remake finished works sometimes. Not frequently, but it happens. I think I am not the only one. After all, any artist is an emotional person. One works in a completely different style, flips through a catalog of past works, then remembers – ‘oh no, I need to finish it’ – and the finishing stage turns into creating a totally different picture. Then, of course, one comes to regret it. Because on a later look, one sees how beautiful the picture was, and asks oneself ‘what was I doing?’ Well, some comic incidents happen. For instance, French painter Georges Rouault took a lot of time to create his works, as he did multilayered paintings. So, he sold them on condition that should he decide at some point that further work was needed, he would be able to come and finish it.”
MISTAKES
“Everyone has the right to make mistakes, it is one’s attitude that is really important. Some people clearly imagine how it would look from the beginning. Others turn to a totally different direction while the work is in progress. I belong to the latter category. Corrective work never ends. One can always do something differently. Even if an entire cohort of art critics come together and say that it is good, but one is not satisfied with one’s work – it is enough. I think that to err or to be a prisoner of one’s senses is a privilege of the artist. I have done a lot of paintings that I did not like 10 years ago, some have even been sold already... Maybe a mistake acts as a driving force even. When Pablo Picasso was asked if he was scared to start, he said: ‘Yes. With every work, I am scared to start.’ It was despite him having created tens of thousands of pictures! This is the mistake factor. It never leaves the artist.”
INSPIRATION
“I never lay out some path for some predetermined time. Maybe I am inclined more to primitivism today, and tomorrow, it will be expressive abstract works. The more varied one’s portfolio is, the more interesting it becomes for the artist and the viewer alike. Getting passionate about this or that ‘ism’ is perfectly normal. Some see this as a flaw, but for me, this is an advantage, since one’s individuality and personal style is evident all the same. Among the early 20th century Fauvists, one cannot distinguish between Andre Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck or Georges-Pierre Seurat and Henri Matisse. So what? All went through this period. The artist’s association with a particular style is neither good nor bad, it is just convenient. The artist has their own life and issues. There are no strong and steady artists. Of course, there are those who have no weak works, like Vincent van Gogh, but he died at 37, and had a short creative period of only 10 years. Anyone who lived longer had ups and downs. The main thing is having a passion. The artist must be impressed and passionate. All of us are essentially Impressionists. We are all impressed – by life circumstances, the art of our colleagues, even TV or the internet – all that brings inspiration. It is a different matter what one chooses and how one presents it.”
SURPRISE
“Honestly, I do not think about the viewer that much. If the artist got surprised at something and managed to properly express it somehow, it will also surprise the viewer. Moreover, one has to be constantly surprised when working. There are no secrets about it. If it gets one interested, it will get everyone as well.”
HUMAN BODY
“When it comes to corporeality, I just remember Rembrandt. With him, it is even somewhat metaphysical. He managed to create a universe with the help of light and the human body. There are cornerstones, starting, say, with Rembrandt again, and continuing to Titian, Kazimir Malevich, Picasso, Francis Bacon; this is a set of artists which it is impossible not to fall in love with, not to pay attention to. I am inspired by them.
WHEN ONE’S MODEL IS POSING, ONE HAS TO GRASP ITS INDIVIDUALITY AND SHOW IT IN A GENERALIZED WAY, SO THAT THE FINAL PICTURE PRESERVES THE LOOK OF THE FIRST MINUTES
“Depicting a person, I want to reflect their individuality and make some generalizations. This is not much different from how we were taught at the RSAS. We would go to the zoo then and had to do a sketch in a minute which would both reflect an animal’s individuality and offer some generalizations. It is the same now: when one’s model is posing, one has to grasp its individuality and show it in a generalized way, so that the final picture preserves the look of the sketch, the look of the first minutes.”
IRONY
“Apparently, it is present in my most recent exhibition, the ‘rural’ one, called ‘Biofield’ and hosted at the Shevchenko Museum in Kyiv. Many people say so. But I was quite serious when painting it. I like all the images depicted there. I wanted to show a working person, as it were. But when one looks for a generalization, one needs to step back a little from the model to avoid becoming too attached to their features. To depict their individuality without naturalism, looking from a distance. This detachment probably has an ironic effect on the viewer.
“This cycle includes compositions which are similar to a saint’s life as it is pictured in icons, and this method is known in modern art. Vladimir Mayakovsky’s ROSTA Windows were done like saints’ lives as well. We did hack works while studying at the institute when we were sent to farms and factories to paint walls of fame, and these were lives of saints as well. Maybe these compositions come from this source, as multiyear experience has had an effect. Sometimes, even the artist themselves cannot trace these connections.”
LANDSCAPE
“I like realistic landscapes, I really appreciate our Pokhitonov and Vasylkivsky schools of the late 19th and early 20th century. We know French landscape painters, such as the Impressionists and members of the Barbizon School, better than our own classical artists, because their works lie in the storage rooms. This is despite them being widely exhibited and recognized in France itself once upon the time. Generally speaking, modern Ukrainian landscape painting begins with Arkhip Kuindzhi, whom I see as the starting point. The Boichukists also paid a lot of attention to landscape painting. Not to mention Viktor Palmov, Oleksandr Bohomazov, and even Malevich, as he was formed by the Ukrainian land, and said that much himself in his memoirs.
“For me, the color is the primary feature of landscape as a genre. It calls for complete freedom of the form, color, expression, and mood. A break with it all. We in the Blue October have already had a few plein air sessions. With plein air painting, the group momentum is very important. It seems that our group is interesting due to that as well.”
BLACK SQUARE
“I think that myth is the foundation of the phenomenon called Black Square. That myth deals with much and nothing at once. I think it is great. We will always have to contend with a huge number of people for whom it means just a myth and nothing else. After all, art history is woven out of myths. Like any history. This contribution is well-appreciated, and it is fine with me.”
FAMILY
“Probably, we like it together because I and Olena are dissimilar as artists. We like to come and see each other’s works. When Olena creates a series of works, she lets no one see them, but I know that when she finally lets me take a look, I will see something completely new. Incidentally, we have this feature in common: new series, new exhibitions are not continuations of the previous ones. They are always unexpected, a little different. It is this difference of approaches that attracts us to each other. Still, we speak the same language. I am always glad when she has a successful exhibition. We do not compete, it has been ruled out. We always strive to support each other. I know what she talks about, and vice versa. It may be the most important thing in living together, whether it is an artistic family or not.”
ETERNITY
“Anyway, art is a craft. And every craft demands work. Nothing has changed since the Middle Ages here. The artist does not even have to be able to draw now, but one still has to present a visual sequence. Everything has the right to exist, everything is interesting and worthy of attention, and I have no problem with it, none at all. But as long as people have walls, there should be paintings on them. While there is a wall, there will be an artist.”
