Vasyl Tkachenko (Lyakh)

In his project, Vasyl Tkachenko (Lyakh) combines painting and video to create the illusion of a surreal walk through personal memories. The artist immerses the viewer in a journey through his beloved places that remain inaccessible today due to the occupation of south of Ukraine.

The locations that form the backdrop for this journey show Mariupol and its surroundings – landscapes that played an important part in the author’s life and to which he mentally returns again and again. However, the distance from these memories grows alongside the distance caused by time. Using video projection, Tkachenko introduces his figure into the space of the painting and the landscapes depicted in it, where his walk is accompanied by an audio recording of the artist’s internal dialogue with the past. Contemplating loss and attempts to preserve the elusive, he immerses himself in reflections on how time, war, and occupation have changed familiar places.

Once-clear images gradually become blurred, turning into half-forgotten fragments or fantasies. The transformed landscapes become a stage for reflection on the constancy and immutability of natural motifs, which remain a strong connection to the past.