KhRAM CONTINUES THE “CHEERS!” PROJECT dedicated to artists who will be celebrating their anniversaries in 2024. Ukraine is fighting for Independence, for Freedom, for Identity. For the right to live freely on its land. Our museum is also fighting, popularizing the national art that identifies us as Ukrainians.
Serhii Savchenko: “As a child, I, a city child, was sent to my relatives in the countryside for the summer. These impressions are unforgettable. Everything is organic. Songs born in the same space, the wisdom and powerful simplicity of the people around me, the magic of the power and truth of this world, which is rich in its mysteries and is so old that it cannot be counted. And those drops of living water, which nature and people gave me, were enough for a lifetime, because the connection with this source was never interrupted. Later you will be surprised at the harmony of the ethnic model of the structure of the universe. It is manifested in the rituals that unite man with nature in a holistic, unshakable harmonious ensemble… The breath of folk culture influences the formation of the true core of a personality that protects the purity of his or her soul. The spirit of an ethnic group corrects all kinds of deformations that a personality undergoes in interaction with the wider world. In a strange way, all subsequent impressions of art were involuntarily compared to this tuning fork of Light.”
Orest Holubets, Doctor of Art History: “Serhii Savchenko is a bright personality. At the same time, his painting has the characteristic features of the Odesa school of painting. The artist mostly creates against a clear background, which seems to embody the idea of light, sky or a positively charged energy field. Illusory movements – light or intensely dynamic – take place in a rectangular format. The constituent elements of the composition often seem to “hang” in meditative calm, and the plane of the canvas gives rise to a strange feeling of the third dimension, reaching infinite depth.”
Serhii Savchenko is one of the brightest representatives of Odesa’s nonconformist artists. It is worth noting that the artists of southern Palmyra opposed socialist realism, officially approved in the USSR, with abstractionism. But for the right to create freely, artists in the USSR were mercilessly criticized, persecuted, deprived of orders, and not allowed to participate in exhibitions. Therefore, they organized so-called “kvartyrnyky” (apartment exhibitions), which aroused the interest of the relevant structures. “In 1977, three KGB officers broke into my studio: they showed me their IDs, then two of them grabbed me by the arms and pushed me firmly against the wall, and the third one started turning over the works and searched the studio. When I recovered a little from the surprise and asked what they were interested in, they told me: “We’re interested in your slope”. Such pressure achieved one thing – it made my relationship with the authorities more concrete,” Savchenko recalls.
Serhii Savchenko: “I started painting my first programmatic abstractions in 1976. Indeed, abstraction makes it possible to enter such an emotional space where pure subtle energies are raging, where art is a print, a trace, clear and revealed at the level of impulsive entry into the image, on the verge of possible insight. …This discovery, in fact, led to the formation of a model that would provide opportunities for existential manifestation.”
How did the official authorities react to artistic searches that did not fit into the framework of socialist realism? Here is just one example. In the spring of 1963, at a republican meeting of creative intellectuals and ideological workers held in the premises of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR, the speech of Andrii Skaba, Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine for Ideology, reads: “…They (the ideologues of the bourgeoisie) are trying to impose on us the peaceful coexistence of ideologies in the field of artistic creativity, adding poison in the form of formalism and abstractionism. And, strange as it may seem, we have found advocates and patrons of formalism and abstractionism, a form of bourgeois ideology. Kowtowing to abstractionism and formalism is nothing more than a deviation from party principles and the nationality of Soviet literature and art, from Marxism-Leninism.”
Despite the bans, harassment, and non-recognition, Serhiy Savchenko remained steadfast to his chosen path. His works really sound in unison with that tuning fork of Light. In almost every work of the artist, transparent colored stripes repeat the configuration of the sea waves. They sometimes explode with expression, as in a storm, and then barely shake. The compositions are dynamic and skillfully constructed, the palette is balanced, and the dominant color, even when it seems to be scarce, is white. In general, Serhii Savchenko’s paintings are full of positive energy, encouraging optimism, contemplation and meditation.
Mykola Stepanov, artist, art critic: “A famous avant-garde artist said: “I can’t look at my works for more than a minute.” But you can look at Serhii Savchenko’s paintings for hours, immersing yourself in them, as in a Ukrainian melody, as in a Ukrainian night, as in our warm Black Sea…”

REFERENCES:
Serhiy Savchenko was born in 1949 in Odesa.
1969-1974 – studied at the Odesa Art School named after M. Hrekov.
Works in painting, graphics, sculpture and monumental art.
In the early 1980s, he joined a group of Odesa nonconformists.
Since the late 1980s, he has participated in exhibitions of contemporary art in Ukraine and abroad.
Since 1988 he has been a member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine.
1992 – one of the founders of the creative association “Choven”.
1993 – one of the founders of the National Association of Artists.
1998 – member of the artistic association “Mamai”.
2009 – Honored Artist of Ukraine.
He lives and works in Odesa.