Ksanyx

I was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine, in 1991. Growing up in an artistic family (my dad is a sculptor), I started drawing at a very early age. From 2007 to 2011, I studied Graphic Design at the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts.

In 2011 I moved to the States, pursuing a career in design while drawing and painting in my spare time. My fascination with abstract shapes and lines may have come from a long experience using my eye as a graphic designer. Design was my focus until 2020 when I started painting large-scale and full-time. 

Artist’s Statement

When put into a painting and out of context with the objects we see in the world around us, lines and shapes take on a new life. With no representational function, pure line and shape can create an emotional experience for the viewer.

Shapes and color are like totems, commanding our focus and flow of energy. The shapes I use in my paintings start out as computer-generated images. Then I bring them to life on canvas or wood. I am interested in how machine-made aesthetics impact our lives. Can the futuristic, artificial form have empathy? Does the machine world have more of a human element than we usually give it credit for? Does it have poetry? Can we find comfort in modern life that is infused with technology?

Waves — light waves, sound waves, and such — have always fascinated me. So have the mathematical diagrams that scientists use to interpret the universe. I find beauty in these shapes, especially in the case of computer-generated shapes. I love the way they originate in accurate calculations and produce images that are simple and elegant. The diagrams also express a metaphysical aspect, as they represent forces that are constantly present in our lives but that we never see. Sound waves, heat and radiation waves, electromagnetic waves — they are all around us, and affect us, and yet they are almost always invisible.