Veronika Hapchenko
Veronika Hapchenko’s vibrant airbrush paintings reflect her profound interest in the histories of infrastructure, architecture, and art of the former USSR, often strengthened through visual references to Soviet-era mosaics found in Ukraine. In themselves an equivocal symbol, they blend Soviet propaganda imagery with Ukrainian avant-garde. These monuments, once the symbols of a hopeful future, are now being destroyed by the Russian invasion and attacks on cultural heritage sites.
Hapchenko’s works Engineer I and Engineer II are part of a series inspired by her research into the legacy of Soviet megaprojects from the 1930s. One such project was the ambitious Northern River Reversal, which aimed to divert the flow of northern rivers that ‘uselessly’ drained into the Arctic Ocean, redirecting them southward to the populated yet dry regions of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. The painting Human Composition, on the other hand, refers to the forced migrations imposed by the Soviet regime between 1930 and 1952. Just as the foundations of entire nations were deliberately broken and reshaped, this painting depicts a human spine that is distorted, twisted, and displaced.
Referring to the Soviet phenomenon of forced collectivity, the smaller-scale painting Sound explores the idea that bringing together a large mass of people generates a vibration. This depersonalized crowd produces a distinct sound, emerging only through the rhythmic repetition of collective bodies.
The massive human and environmental engineering projects pursued by Soviet authorities to assert dominance over both nature and people continue to impact the region today. Through her airbrush technique, which conceals brushstrokes and blurs edges while expanding color into space, the artist subtly suggests the nearly invisible ties we must confront without washing them away in order to process collective trauma.
Veronika Hapchenko’s vibrant airbrush paintings reflect her profound interest in the histories of infrastructure, architecture, and art of the former USSR, often strengthened through visual references to Soviet-era mosaics found in Ukraine. In themselves an equivocal symbol, they blend Soviet propaganda imagery with Ukrainian avant-garde. These monuments, once the symbols of a hopeful future, are now being destroyed by the Russian invasion and attacks on cultural heritage sites.
Hapchenko’s works Engineer I and Engineer II are part of a series inspired by her research into the legacy of Soviet megaprojects from the 1930s. One such project was the ambitious Northern River Reversal, which aimed to divert the flow of northern rivers that ‘uselessly’ drained into the Arctic Ocean, redirecting them southward to the populated yet dry regions of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. The painting Human Composition, on the other hand, refers to the forced migrations imposed by the Soviet regime between 1930 and 1952. Just as the foundations of entire nations were deliberately broken and reshaped, this painting depicts a human spine that is distorted, twisted, and displaced.
Referring to the Soviet phenomenon of forced collectivity, the smaller-scale painting Sound explores the idea that bringing together a large mass of people generates a vibration. This depersonalized crowd produces a distinct sound, emerging only through the rhythmic repetition of collective bodies.
The massive human and environmental engineering projects pursued by Soviet authorities to assert dominance over both nature and people continue to impact the region today. Through her airbrush technique, which conceals brushstrokes and blurs edges while expanding color into space, the artist subtly suggests the nearly invisible ties we must confront without washing them away in order to process collective trauma.
