Biography
Serhiy Oleksandrovych Savchenko (b. 1949, Odesa) is a painter, graphic artist, monumentalist, and sculptor.
1969–1974 – Studied at the Grekov Odesa Art School.
Early 1980s – Joined the group of Odesa nonconformists.
Late 1980s – Participant in art exhibitions.
From 1988 – Member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine.
1992 – One of the founders of the Choven [Boat] artistic association.
1993 – One of the founders of the National Association of Artists.
1998 – Member of the Mamai artistic association.
2009 – Honored Artist of Ukraine.
Lives and works in Odesa.
Serhiy Savchenko is one of the most prominent representatives of Odesa nonconformist artists. It is worth noting that the artists of the “Southern Palmyra” opposed the officially approved Socialist Realism in the USSR with abstractionism, among other trends. However, for the right to create freely, artists in the USSR were ruthlessly criticized, persecuted, deprived of commissions, and barred from participating in exhibitions. Consequently, they organized so-called “apartment exhibitions” (kvartirniki), which drew the attention of the relevant structures. “In 1977, three KGB officers burst into my studio: they showed their IDs, then two of them grabbed my arms and pinned me firmly against the wall, while the third began overturning my works and searched the studio. When I recovered slightly from the surprise and asked what they were interested in, they told me: ‘We are interested in your leaning’ [in Russian in the original]. Such pressure achieved only one thing—it concretized my relationship with the authorities,” Savchenko recalls.
Serhiy Savchenko: “I began painting my first programmatic abstractions in 1976. Indeed, abstraction provides an opportunity to enter an emotional space where pure, subtle energies rage, where art is an imprint, a trace—clear and revealed at the level of impulsive entry into the image, on the verge of possible epiphany. This discovery, in fact, determined the formation of a model that would ensure the possibilities of existential manifestation.»
Orest Holubets, Doctor of Art Criticism: “Serhiy Savchenko is a vivid personality. At the same time, his painting bears the characteristic traits of the Odesa school of painting. The artist primarily creates on a light background, which seems to embody the idea of light, the sky, or a positively charged energy field. Within the rectangular format, illusory movements occur—gentle or intensely dynamic. The constituent elements of the composition often seem to ‘float’ in meditative tranquility, while the surface of the canvas gives rise to a strange sense of a third dimension reaching into infinite depth.”
