Biography
Oleksandr Anatoliyovych Roitburd (1961, Odesa – 2021, Kyiv) was a painter, graphic artist, multidisciplinary artist, curator, public figure, and cultural manager.
1983 – Graduated from the Art and Graphics Faculty of the Ushynsky Pedagogical Institute in Odesa under Valeriy Hehamian. Since then, a participant in regional, national, and international exhibitions.
1988, 1989, 1991 – Participant in young artists’ plein air workshops in Sednev under the leadership of Tiberiy Silvashi and Oleksandr Soloviov.
From 1999 – Member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine.
1993 – Co-founder of the creative association Association New Art (Odesa); served as its art director from 1993 and as its president from 1999 to 2001.
1997–1999 – Chairman of the Board of the Soros Center for Contemporary Art – Odesa.
2000–2001 – Lived and worked in New York.
2001 – Participant in the 49th Venice Biennale.
2001–2008 – Director of the Marat Guelman Gallery in Kyiv.
2018–2021 – Director of the Odesa Fine Arts Museum.
Lived and worked in Odesa and Kyiv.
While studying at art school, he began taking lessons from Oleg Sokolov, a representative of the Odesa nonconformist movement, and the muralist Mykola Pavliuk. He later met the Odesa artist Yuriy Yehorov. Odesa’s unofficial art scene exerted a profound influence on Roitburd. As one of the founders of Ukrainian Postmodernism and a leader of the Ukrainian Transavantgarde, he entered the history of contemporary Ukrainian art in the late 1980s as the driving figure of the Odesa circle within the Ukrainian New Wave. On his initiative, dozens of art symposia, conferences, and contemporary art plein airs were organized in Odesa.
Roitburd attributed his stylistic and figurative language to the phenomenon of postmodern culture, manipulating classical art subjects and quoting masterpieces while addressing the values of various religions and moral systems. Old Jewish men, young beauties, animals with strange eyes, and political figures inhabit his canvases. The artist ironically referred to his vocation as “creating the Kingdom of God in a single city.” A golden-brown palette, broad brushstrokes, materiality, surreal qualities, and playful engagement with art history define the Ukrainian artist’s world—overpopulated with images and motifs, yet instantly recognizable.
Roitburd’s works from the 1980s “are characterized by modernist techniques defined by formal experimentation and the liberation of painterly language. During this period, he created a series of works based on an appeal to the past and a complete reinterpretation of sacred texts and imagery, constructing a new mythology upon their foundation. His paintings in a golden-brown palette with a distinct brushstroke depict saints, ancient figures, and characters from parables and legends. The figures, endowed with a strange physical presence, are enclosed in the space of a seemingly petrified, airless world,” writes Daria Shevtsova.
