One of the leading contemporary Ukrainian artists and a prominent representative of the "New Ukrainian Wave." In the 1980s–1990s, Vasiliy Ryabchenko made a significant contribution to the artistic processes that shaped the new visual paradigm of Ukrainian art. His large-scale and richly imaginative works laid the foundation of the "New Ukrainian Wave," and the artist himself was one of the active initiators of artistic transformations. Together with a group of like-minded artists, he helped shape the image of Odesa as one of the key centers of contemporary art in Ukraine.
EDUCATION
In 1966, Vasiliy Ryabchenko began his art education at the Children's Art School affiliated with the Odesa Art College. In 1969, he enrolled in the painting department of the M. B. Grekov Odesa Art College, graduating in 1973. From 1974 to 1976, he studied as a free listener at the monumental art faculty of the Leningrad Vera Mukhina Higher School of Art and Design. From 1978 to 1983, he studied at the art and graphic faculty of the K. D. Ushynsky Odesa Pedagogical Institute, where his teachers included Zinaida Borysyuk and Valeriy Gegamyan.
ARTISTIC PRACTICE
Vasiliy Ryabchenko’s multifaceted practice encompasses painting, graphics, collage, photography, digital art, objects, and installations. His works form a cohesive artistic universe in which the artist's imagination and mythology intertwine organically with theatricality and paradoxical imagery, philosophical and conceptual depth, refined aesthetics, and expression.Vasiliy Ryabchenko was one of the first Ukrainian artists to explore the genre of installation. His work Swing for Stumps (1993), presented within the curatorial project The Steppes of Europe (Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw), holds a significant place in the history of Ukrainian installation art. He later created projects such as Big Bambi, A Tribute to Madame Récamier (1994), Princess (1996), and others, where painting, objects, light, and scenography merge into a holistic artistic statement.In parallel, Vasiliy Ryabchenko actively developed a photographic direction, which he began exploring back in the 1970s. Key projects include Naked Dream and The Others (1995), in which photography acquires painterly plasticity and becomes a form of conceptual expression.As art critic Galyna Sklyarenko notes:“The work of Odesa artist Vasiliy Ryabchenko is one of the most striking phenomena of the ‘New Ukrainian Wave,’ which reprogrammed the development of national painting by involving it in postmodern practices, enriching it with new imagery and an ambiguous artistic language, where quotes from art history, free artistic imagination, irony, and grotesqueness intertwine… Indeed, viewing Ryabchenko's paintings and immersing oneself in his fantastic and enchantingly captivating world is a true pleasure. In times of uncertainty, tension, doubt, and loss, they can offer the viewer a Great Hope of the Beautiful, which helps us ‘refine our sensitivity to differences and enhance our ability to endure the incommensurable’ (Jean-François Lyotard).”AWARDS AND HONORSThe Naked Dream project, presented in 1996 at the Blank Art Gallery (Kyiv), became a visual manifesto of a new artistic thinking and earned Vasiliy Ryabchenko the award and title of “Best Artist of Ukraine” at the All-Ukrainian Art Festival Golden Section (Ukrainian House, Kyiv). That same year, he founded the creative association Art Laboratory — an institutional platform that played a notable role in shaping the contemporary art context of Odesa.
EXHIBITION ACTIVITY
Throughout the late 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s, Vasiliy Ryabchenko actively participated in conceptual art projects that defined the formation of contemporary Ukrainian art. His works were presented at the most important exhibitions of the time, both in Ukraine and abroad. Today, his artworks continue to be exhibited on prestigious international platforms, demonstrating sustained interest in his work and confirming his status as a recognized classic of contemporary Ukrainian art.Vasiliy Ryabchenko's works are held in the collections of leading art institutions in Ukraine and abroad. In Kyiv, his works are part of the collections of the National Art Museum of Ukraine, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Ukraine, the Ministry of Culture's collection, the Exhibition Directorate of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine, and the Center for Contemporary Art "Soviart." In Odesa, his works are in the Odesa Art Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Odesa.Significant collections of his works are also preserved in the Korsak Museum of Contemporary Ukrainian Art (Lutsk), the Nikanor Onatsky Sumy Regional Art Museum, the Hryhoriy Galagan Chernihiv Regional Art Museum, the Cherkasy Regional Art Museum, and the Zaporizhzhia Art Museum. Abroad, Ryabchenko’s works are held in the collection of the Zimmerli Art Museum (New Brunswick, USA), among others. Additionally, his artworks are part of numerous esteemed private collections in Ukraine and internationally.