Vasyl Tkachenko (Lyakh)

Vasyl Tkachenko is an artist born in Mariupol, now living between Kyiv and Lviv. He works with painting, graphics, photography, film, and music. The main topics in his practice are memory and identity.

Prior to the russian full-scale invasion in Ukraine, Vasil was not deeply engaged in artistic endeavors. However, the war significantly altered the artist’s perspective towards canvases and paints. To cope with the anguish of not knowing what had happened to his family in Mariupol and to overcome the sorrow for his native city, Vasil began to paint intensively.

His paintings primarily portray seemingly mundane scenes from everyday life, yet beneath the surface, they carry profound emotions and reflect the profound societal changes brought about by the war. Each brushstroke on his canvases becomes a channel for expressing the deeply felt experiences and the tectonic shifts in society caused by the war.

Vasyl’s works are now part of the collections of contemporary art museums in Kyiv and Warsaw