Biography
Mykola Oleksiiovych Malyshko (born in 1938, Znamenivka village, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast) – painter, graphic artist, sculptor, monumentalist. Brother – artist Petro Malyshko, wife – artist Nina Denysova.
1953 – works as an assistant artist at the drama theater in Kaliningrad, russia.
1956 – 1961 – studies at the Dnipropetrovsk State Art School.
1967 – graduated from the Department of Monumental Painting of the Kyiv State Art Institute; teachers – Mykola Storozhenko, Vilen Chekaniuk, Illia Shtilman.
1967 – 1972 – works in the architectural and art workshop under the Dnipropetrovsk City Executive Committee.
From 1970 – participant in republican and international exhibitions. Among personal exhibitions – at the Andrii Sheptytsky National Museum in Lviv (1992), Khmelnytskyi Regional Art Museum (1993), gallery of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (1995), Vinnytsia Regional Art Museum (1997), Soviart Center for Contemporary Art in Kyiv (1999).
1974 – together with Nina Denysova, executes the wooden relief Straw Bull and murals for the Khmelnytskyi Regional Children’s Library.
1976 – member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine.
1987 – participates in one of the first independent exhibition initiatives in Ukraine by the Pohliad creative association of monumentalist artists (curator – Dmytro Nahurnyi) at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute; subsequently, the exhibition gave its name to the informal creative association.
1983 – supporting the initiative of Nina Denysova and a small group of like-minded villagers from Malyutianka, he restores with his own hands the house-workshop of Mykola Pymonenko, which was damaged by fire.
1998 – laureate of the Vasyl Stus Prize.
2009 – Honored Artist of Ukraine. 2010s – actively cooperates with the Kyiv art center “Ya Gallery”.
2017 – Taras Shevchenko National Prize of Ukraine.
From 1975 – lives and works in Malyutianka village, Kyiv Oblast, and Kyiv.
The artist recalls: “I was born and raised in the steppes dotted with kurgans – high mounds on which there were no longer sculptures. They were gathered in the Yavornytsky Museum. I drew, photographed, and dreamed of them, and now I think that back then I met them as something dearest and most valuable. The integrity of the ancient steppe sculpture struck me. Understanding, Mother, Father, Kin, Community. Past, Future, Present, Earth, Sky, Life, Actions. All of this is hidden in those ancient statues.”
During his study years in Kyiv, the artist’s civic and creative position was finally formed, largely determined by the activities of the Suchasnyk Club of Creative Youth and the circle of the Ukrainian intelligentsia associated with it. Recalling those who exerted the greatest influence on him, Malyshko names Les Taniuk, Alla Horska, Opanas Zalivakha, Valentyn Zadorozhnyi, Ivan Svitlychnyi, Ivan Drach, Mykola Vinhranovskyi, Lina Kostenko, and Vasyl Stus among the first. An important event in Malyshko’s life was his acquaintance with Boychukist artist Mariia Kotliarevska. With like-minded friends, including Petro Kot, Fedir Tetianych, Viktor Hryhorov, and Borys Plaksii, he organizes a self-education group and arranges discussion-exhibitions.
In the Soviet period, for over 20 years, his works that went beyond the framework of socialist realism declared by the authorities were not exhibited. In his multi-vector work, he strives to break the stereotypes of artistic vision. According to Malyshko, sculpture is a metaphor for a real reality capable of expressing not only creative impulse but also the desire for unity and the national self-identification of Ukrainians. In his works, he combines painting, relief, and spatial plastics, preferring visually simple, geometrized, internally balanced forms that evoke associations with prehistory and archaism, and excite with the mystery of imagery and an aura of transcendence.
