“Sometimes I want to tell the truth, how things were and are in reality, but I restrain myself so as not to harm anyone. That’s why creating fairy tales, believing in them and making them come true is our main and noblest goal,” Roman Minin says. Of course, he cannot do any harm, even when he opens the entrance to the underground circles of hell. The artist is a storyteller, a ritualizer, a mythmaker. He has a full ethical right to the amplitude from sacralization to sarcasm in the inexhaustible miner’s theme, because he is from there, from that universe, from the miner’s land.

It would seem that his place of birth (Myrnohrad, Donetsk region), his mining dynasty, and his surname (mining is one of the meanings of the English word for “miner”) all predetermined his life and professional path. But the seventeen-year-old Roman went against the grain (by the way, as he did later in his art career). Later, in 2013, his landmark work “Escape Plan from the Donetsk Region” was nominated for the PinchukArtCentre Prize. The basis for the creation of a symbolic plan for leaving the hermetic social system was personal experience, specific irony, continuity and destruction of the tradition of monumental art, and analytical thinking (another meaning of mining is “intellectual analysis”).

Minin is an absolute monumentalist. He thinks, summarizes and formulates artistic messages in accordance with the basic principles of monumental and decorative art, in which he has a thorough knowledge. It is a form of fine art that is closely connected with society through architecture and urbanism and which, from the very beginning of its existence, has been intended to communicate fundamental ideas to the widest audience in an understandable visual form. For example, through frescoes, mosaics, stained-glass windows, and sculpture in the interior and exterior of buildings, sacred monumental art has long conveyed Christian values, while monumental art of the Soviet period promoted idealized communist concepts.

Minin does not come from the world of archaic ideas and beliefs, but from a modern real closed social community – miners, with their worldview and traditions, material and spiritual world, and their inherent subculture. He systematizes and generalizes, sacralizes and idealizes their life and worldview. As a result, the artist creates powerful and multidimensional visual symbols that are open to interpretation and are not dogmatic, as in the Christian religion or political totalitarian system. The narrative in the works is rather conventional, laconic, and cyclic, partly similar to texts about the lives of mythological heroes. The texts are also integral to Minin’s works: some of the “writings” are encoded with a special author’s alphabet, which adds magic and a sense of belonging to the hidden.

Thanks to the retrospective exhibition, it is possible to “drill down” through the artistic transformations that took place with the artist from 2008 to 2024: from monumental expressive paintings of the 2000s to technologically perfect futuristic bas-reliefs of the 2020s, with the potential to scale to grandiose proportions in their composition. In 2016, in an interview at Mystetskyi Arsenal during the installation of his kinetic work “Don’t Cry Against the Wind” Minin said: “Now I’m working on a genre I call transmonumentalism. Its main task is to immerse the viewer in a state of contemplation, not just viewing. I think I have found the ‘port’ to which you can ‘connect’ and ‘download information’. The state of contemplation is the way to mutual understanding between people… Although I believe that empathy or feeling is more important than understanding between people.” So even if you don’t understand Minin’s art, don’t give up trying to interact: try to enter a contemplative trance and feel it.

The artist does not stop developing transmonumentalism: he uses modern augmented reality technologies to create monuments dedicated to a particular person or event, which can only be seen in augmented virtual reality, because they do not exist in a physical state. For example, you can use GPS navigation to place a monument in a specific location in augmented reality.

Roman Minin, an undoubtedly outstanding and internationally recognized contemporary Ukrainian artist, continues to transform his life and art: “I don’t make plans for the future anymore and have even stopped thinking about the future. It seems to me that I have already moved to another stage of my creative development, when all I need is peace, a white sheet and a pencil. Sometimes I still compose songs. But, at the same time, I only dream about peace, because I need to earn money not only for my family, but also for the Armed Forces.” 

REFERENCES:

Roman Minin was born on June 10, 1981 in Dymytrov (now Myrnohrad), Donetsk region. He is a painter, graphic artist, street artist, photographer, VR artist, author of objects and installations. He graduated from the Kharkiv Art School (1998-2002) and the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts (Department of Monumental Painting, Victor Hontorov’s workshop, 2002-2008). He organized the Street Art Festival in Kharkiv and headed the program “Isolation in Urban Space” at the Donetsk Center for Contemporary Art “Isolation” in 2012. In 2013, he was nominated for the PinchukArtCentre Prize, and in 2016 – for the Malevich Prize. In his photographic practice, he combines documentary urban landscapes with hand-colored images. He founded his own genre – transmonumentalism. He actively uses virtual and augmented reality technologies in his practice. His works were presented at Phillips and Sotheby’s auctions. He lives and works in Kharkiv.

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS:

“Hryvnia. More than Money“ (2025, National Center ”Ukrainian House“, Kyiv); ”MATTER MATTERS. Ukrainian Art Textiles“ (2024, National Center ”Ukrainian House“, Kyiv); ”Byzantine Nostalgia“ (2024, Zamek Ujazdowski Center for Contemporary Art, Warsaw); ”White and Black“ (2023, National Academy of Arts of Ukraine, Kyiv); ”My History. 32 Years of Independence“ (2023, Museum of the History of Kyiv, Kyiv); ”Ukraine. Other Views on Relationships“ (2021, Międzynarodowe Centrum Kultury, Krakow, Poland); ”30 x 30. Contemporary Ukrainian Art“ (2021, National Center ”Ukrainian House“, Kyiv); ”Minin’g Charleroi“ (2019, Le Bois du Cazier Museum, Charleroi, Belgium); ”Transmonument” (2019, Mhaata Gallery, Brussels); “The Nation’s Gold” (2019, Municipal Gallery, Kharkiv); “Art Mining” (2018, Permanent Mission of Ukraine to the Council of Europe, Strasbourg, France); “Friend or Foe” (2018, Dzyga Gallery, Lviv); “Permanent Revolution. Ukrainian Art Today” (2018, Ludwig Museum, Budapest); “Artistic Labor. ART WORK“ (2017, Dworcowa Gallery, Wroclaw, Poland); ”Show Promise“ (2017, City Palace of Arts, Lviv); ”Miner’s Folklore. In Memory“ (2016, M17 Center for Contemporary Art, Kyiv); ”Identity. Behind the Curtain of Uncertainty“ (2016, NAMU, Kyiv); ”UK/raine“ (2015, Saatchi Gallery, London); ”Premonition: Ukrainian Art Now“ (2014, Saatchi Gallery, London); ”I Am a Drop in the Ocean“ (2014, Kunstlerhaus, Vienna / MOCAK, Krakow, Poland); ”Orientation on the Ground” (2013, NAMU, Kyiv); Exhibition of 20 nominees for the PinchukArtCentre Prize (2013, PinchukArtCentre, Kyiv); Contemporary Ukrainian Artists (2013, Saatchi Gallery, London); Ukrainian News (2013, Zamek Ujazdowski Center for the Arts, Warsaw); Myth. Ukrainian Baroque“ (2012, NPMU, Kyiv); ”Escape Plan from Donetsk Region“ (2012, Palazzo Cantagalli, Foligno, Italy); ”Collective Dreams“ (2011, IPSM, Kyiv); ”If / If / If. Ukrainian Art in Transit“ (2010, Art Museum, Perm, Russia); ”Dreams of War“ (2010, VovaTanya Gallery, Kharkiv); ”GogolFest” (2009, Mystetskyi Arsenal, Kyiv); “27th Miniprint International of Cadaques” (2007, Taller Galeria Fort, Cadaques, Spain); “All-Ukrainian Exhibition of 60 Years of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine” (1998, Central House of Artists, Kyiv); “Regional Exhibition of Donbas Artists” (1996, Donetsk State House of Artists, Donetsk).