Tsagolov Vasyl

Vasyl Tsagolov (1957) – Ukrainian artist, media artist, performer. He was born in the city of Digori in North Ossetia (Russia). Representative of the New Ukrainian Wave.

He studied at the Kyiv State Academy of Arts in 1980-86, Faculty of Painting.

Engaged in painting, video art, photography, happenings and installations. A characteristic feature of large-format paintings is fragmentation: working in a realistic manner, the artist leaves unpainted fragments of the canvas. The figurative scenes, often featured by office workers, ballerinas, aliens, thugs and protesters, reflect the savagery, absurdity and violence of this world.

Since 2002, the artist began a period of close cooperation with the Hetman’s Gallery. His works from the series: “Ukrainian X-files”, “Phantoms of Fear”, “Wandering Ball” were successively shown in Kyiv and Moscow. The idea of ​​”Ukrainian X-files” originated with Tsagolov in the mid-90s. After a series of paintings “Rubber of Senses” (1993), Tsagolov also preferred to paint other species, bringing up the idea of ​​modernizing the picture. When in the late 90’s there were glimpses of a new understanding of the picturesque medium, it is no coincidence that he was among the first to update it. In these paintings, the author adheres to the view that in the revision of figurative pictures of radical changes need not the form but the subject and nature of the story. Therefore, his painting – “no” and so similar to a dry academic sketch, because academism – neutral in terms of expressiveness of formal refinements, and this allows us to focus on the main thing in the understanding of the author – The plot.