Artist Statement:
Born in Russia - emigrated to New York City in 1990 & exhibited there before moving to Australia in 2000. Lived/worked in Australia for 8 years. Since 2009 I have called New Zealand home. I love the feelings of awkwardness that my paintings project through a mixture of both naive brush work, stylization, and awkward situations. I've been recognized for my singular works combining text and figuration, and merging disparate elements of Russian iconography, re-inscribing strange and often obscured meanings into normative narrative structures reminiscent of comic strips and advertising. Emerging from behind the iron curtain, my paintings, and works on paper, capture the underlying forces that dominate and determine the conditions of the human psyche. In my latest works, I continue to expand upon strategies of collage, drawing, and painting that conjure earlier established themes and imagery mined from a myriad of sources including, movies, cult icons, literature, television, and my personal history. This broad range of historical references not only foreground my own interest in appropriating past visual and literary styles but also invokes the schizophrenic and pathological impulses at work in the Russian imagination. As the use of color has played an increasingly central role in my more recent works, so has the formal concern for surface, space, and technique, resulting in densely populated and fragmentary images that further articulate my refusal to offer a conventional narrative logic. Often at once perversely funny and poetically contemplative, I think my power lies in an ability to occupy multiple positions at once, and ultimately to implicate text and image in a slippery production of meaning. I have gained some acclaim in Australia whilst participating in several solo and group exhibitions there, namely the Archibald Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Blake Prize for Religious Art, the Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award, the Mosman Prize and the Walker & Hall Art Award in New Zealand. Most recently, my work was selected for the 2016 Adam Portraiture Award exhibition at the NZ Portrait Gallery in Wellington.
Exhibitions:
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
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2016 Grass Grows On My Tongue, New Plymouth, NZ
2015 Remembering The Future, Wellington NZ
2015 Town & Country, Queenstown, NZ
?2014 Birdbrain, New Plymouth, NZ
2014 Other Moods That Make My Day, Hamilton, NZ
2014 Ars Longa Vita Brevis, Queenstown, NZ
2013 Awkward Spaces, Auckland NZ
2013 Far From Home, Queenstown, NZ
2012 I Remember, TOI Gallery, Auckland, NZ
2011 Welcome to My World, Queenstown, NZ
2011 More Stories, TOI Gallery, Auckland, NZ
2009 Ilya Volykhine, Higgins Harte Gallery, USA
2007 It’s A Helluva Town, GroundFloorGallery, AUS
2006 Blue & Other Colours, GroundFloorGallery, AUS
2005 Stories, GroundFloor Gallery, Sydney, AUS
2004 Back in the USSR, GroundFloorGallery, AUS
2003 Domestic, GroundFloorGallery, AUS
2002 People Places, GroundFloorGallery, AUS
2001 Warm & Fuzzy, 1 + 2 Artist Studios, AUS
2001 Bondi WADi, Bondi, AUS
2000 Lahaina Arts Society, USA
1999 Maui Arts & Cultural Center, USA
1997 NY Arts Society, New York, USA
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2016 Walker & Hall Art Award, Finalist, Auckland, NZ
2016 Adam Portrait Award Exhibition, Wellington, NZ
2015 Figurative Form Exhibition, Auckland, NZ
2014 Walker & Hall Art Award, Finalist, Auckland, NZ
2014 NZ Painting & Printmaking Award Exhibition, NZ
2014 Summer, WOW Museum, Nelson, NZ?
2013 200x200x200, Kina Gallery, New Plymouth, NZ
2013 NZ Art Show, Wellington, NZ
2013 Fragment, Reflections Gallery, Nelson, NZ
2012 NZ Art Show, Wellington, NZ
2012 Members Show , WCAG, Auckland NZ
2012 Art Map, WCAG, Auckland NZ
2011 All Black, WCAG, Auckland, NZ
2010 Art & Text, WCAG, Auckland, NZ
2009 Walker & Hall Art Award, Finalist, Auckland, NZ
2008 Lahaina Arts Society Show, Hawaii, USA
2007 Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award, AUS
2006 Art Sydney, Royal Exhibition Building, AUS
2006 Art Melbourne, Carlton Gardens, AUS
2006 Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award, AUS
2006 Mosman Art Prize - Finalist, AUS
2005 Art Sydney, Royal Exhibition Building, AUS
2005 Art Melbourne, Carlton Gardens, AUS
2005 Teasers, GroundFloor Gallery, AUS
2004 53rd Blake Prize for Religious Art, AUS
2004 Art Melbourne, Carlton Gardens, AUS
2003 Archibald Prize - Finalist, AGNSW, AUS
2003 Art Melbourne, Carlton Gardens, AUS
2003 Art Sydney, Royal Exhibition Building, AUS
2002 Sexdecim, GroundFloor Gallery, AUS
2002 Hill on Hargrave, Sydney, AUS
