Biography
Vasyl Teodoziiovych Bazhaj (born 1950, Tartakiv, Lviv Oblast) is a painter, performance artist, and creator of art objects.
1974–present: Active in painting and installation art.
1976–1982: Worked at the Lviv Theatre for Young Audiences.
1979: Graduated from the Lviv Institute of Decorative and Applied Arts, studying under Roman Selskyi and Karlo Zvirynskyi.
1989–present: Participant in national and international exhibitions, including more than 50 solo shows.
1991: Member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine; since 1996, board member; since 1998, head of the Conceptual Art Section of the Lviv Union of Artists.
1996: Honorary Award at the Salon International d’Art Contemporain.
1997: Grand Prix at the “Golden Section” International Art Festival, Ukraine.
2001: Laureate of the Ivan Trush Prize for active creative work in painting.
Lives and works in Lviv.
Bazhaj works in abstract painting and abstract-symbolic performance art, viewing the latter as a unifying factor across the visual arts. He actively engages the viewer, drawing them into the exhibition environment as a single, holistic artwork. Through a conceptual departure from the two-dimensional painted plane into the space surrounding the viewer, a synthesis of painting and installation occurs within the exhibition environment.
“His works trace the theme of humanity and nature created by the Almighty, alongside ‘secondary nature’—the work of human hands. Within this antithesis lies a sense of tragic incompatibility: into the elevated harmony of living, complex, color-rich nuances and variations, into the free, uninhibited element of nervous brushstrokes, break completely foreign, hostile mechanistic rhythms—evenly broken planes of artificial origin,” notes researcher Roman Hankevych.
Bazhaj sees his task as discovering and mastering the spiritual dimension through art, affirming the phenomenon of the artwork’s existence for the pure idea of art.
