An artist, graphic designer, translator, screenwriter, writer, participant in the Russian-Ukrainian war. The exhibition presents works created in 2022-2024 during the author’s service in the Armed Forces of Ukraine (Kyiv and region, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Chernihiv regions). Here is a series of frontline sketches created in the author’s unique technique – suspensions of clay and earth from trenches, ash and soot from stoves on watercolor paper.
“As it turned out, the earth and clay of the Dyke Pole, soaked from the rains, not only sticks well to clothes, shoes and equipment, but also lays down well on watercolor paper, forms interesting textures and combines well with ash, soot and charcoal in emotionally charged frontline scenes with a limited color scheme.” (Oleh Bazylevych)
“Oleh Bazylevych’s technique, on the one hand, brings us back to the ancient times when pigments – substances that give color to paints – were made from natural materials (clay, chalk, soot, coal, gypsum, sand, limestone, minerals, resins and tree bark, flowers, berries and roots, insects, mollusks, burnt bones, etc.) On the other hand, the works of the artist-veteran of the Russian-Ukrainian war are artistic monuments that document both personal and social experience and are an integral part of the extremely important social process of commemoration. That is, the practice of collective memory through the actualization of images that belong to past events and are important to every member of society. The exhibition at the museum also involves these works in the practice of commemoration, the memorialization of war. Paramedic and journalist Iryna “Cheka” Tsybukh, who died in the Kharkiv sector in 2024, said: “The responsibility of the living to the dead is to testify to what happened.” (Olena Mykhailovska, curator, researcher at KhRAM).
Oleh Olehovych Bazylevych was born in Kyiv on November 6, 1964.
His father was Oleh Bazylevych (1938-2018), a famous Ukrainian football player and football coach (a striker for Dynamo Kyiv in the 1960s; as a coach, he formed a famous tandem with Valerii Lobanovskyi in 1974-1976; in 1993-1994 he was the head of the Ukrainian national football team).
Mother – Tetiana Bazylevych (Kaznina) (1940 – 2004), actress of the Lesya Ukrainka National Academic Drama Theater in Kyiv).
1981 – 1986: Geography Department, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv.
1983 – 1984: Preparatory Department of the Kyiv Art Institute (now – NAOMA), Faculty of Architecture. Teacher – artist Viktor Kryzhanivskyi (1950 – 2016).
1986 – 1993: Institute of Geography of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Candidate of Geographical Sciences (economic and social geography, nature protection and rational use of natural resources).
1993 – 1997: The Dow Chemical Company (USA), sales manager of plastic and polyurethane foam products.
1998 – 2010: work in the private sector of industry, plastic processing and polyurethane foam production.
З 2011: writer, translator (English, Polish, Spanish, Czech, Bulgarian), screenwriter of documentary and fiction films. He has won more than 50 awards at international film festivals and competitions.
Since February 24, 2022 – in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, a machine gunner of the 23rd separate rifle battalion, since
April 24, 2022 – Deputy Commander of the self-propelled artillery battery of the First Self-Propelled artillery battalion of the First Separate Tank Brigade. He retired on November 07, 2024.
