Yevhen Ravskyi
A painter, action artist, and the longstanding curator of the Lialka cultural center in Lviv. Lives and works in Lviv.
He was born in 1966 in Lviv. His father worked at an aircraft factory, his mother was a medical nurse. According to him, his father was sensitive to art. He would accompany him to sketch lessons and made him a box for paints. In 1978-1984, Yevhen Ravskyi studied in the Taras Shevchenko Republican Boarding Art School in Kyiv. He entered there after his father came across a newspaper call for applications (Tsymbalista, 2015). Ravskyi artistic language became impacted by the works of Michelangelo and Caravaggio that impressed him back in school years.
After school, Ravskyi took lessons from the Ukrainian graphic artist Andriy Chebykin and tried a couple times to enter the Kyiv Art Institute. Because of the high competition, he failed and returned to Lviv. Here, he managed to join the Youth Section of the Union of Artists chaired by the graphic artist Yuriy Charyshkin, where he met Mykhaylo Moskal and Ihor Podolchak (Kosmolinska, " ‘Iliad’: Reload", Zbruč, 2014).
He started his active exhibition activities in 1993. He was awarded a scholarship for the Polish program Gaude Polonia. Later, Yevhen Ravskyi's creative work was referred to as the art of the past; he belongs to the "new old painters." The concept was described by a US critic Donald Kuspit. The trend developed because of the "stifling situation in contemporary art" when artists had to return to the visually saturated art, unlike conceptual art. The so-called "new old painters" were using classic techniques of figurative painting, following the Western classic school, using conventional academic techniques (invented and popular in the Renaissance period). However, on a symbolic level, they appeal to the rethinking of images of contemporary culture (Filonenko, 2017, 53).
His works are often re-interpreting classic texts. For example, his "Iliad" series (2014) is based on Homer's classic text. The artist emphasizes that it was not a mere re-illustration:
"I am trying to share about the things that have been told, but in a different manner (...) I was searching for my own language and was telling the story to sound as if it were in our times (...) I wanted to show it all through our times — to open the curtain and show who the heroes were" (Filonenko, 2017, 129).
Thus, key actors in the battles, in negotiations, in appeals and despairs in Ravskyi's paintings are the Lviv artists wearing jeans, while the scene of action is the familiar Virmenska Street presented as a battlefield with grand red curtains. In the "Warner Sisters Present" series (2009), Ravskyi referred to Shakespeare's works, such as "Macbeth" and "Romeo and Juliette." He intertwined them with familiar images from modern mass culture. Thus, the author uses a symbolic domain to draw a parallel between the Shakespearean Macbeth and a modern Batman: "One field combines the texts on the exemplary but dangerous heroism and the most horrible despotism, identical in their urge for the darkness" (Filonenko, 2017, 95).
Related Stories
Related Places
Vul. Stefanyka, 03 – Lviv Art Gallery Building (former Loziński palace)
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Vul. Bohomoltsia, 06 – Center for Urban History of East Central Europe building
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Works and Projects
1990 — Акція на вулицях нічного Львова (Action on the Lviv Streets at Night)
1997 — Фотоательє від Равського (Photoatelier of Ravskyi)
1998 — Ноктюрн (Nocturne)
1999 — Автопортрет (Autoportrait)
2002 — Король Данило (King Danylo)
2008 — HALYWOOD project, photocollage
2008 — Velyka tajemnycja (A Great Mystery)
2008 — Svojemu sercu čulomu skažu, ščo zla ne stalos. O, zlovisnyj den! (I'll tell my receptive heart that the evil didn't happen. Oh, the dismal day!)
2008 — Nas nezvorušno sluxajut svjati (Saints are listening to us uninterruptedly)
2008 — Kudy ž ity, koly ya sercem tut? (Where should I go when my heart is here?)
2009 — Iz niččju vže zmahajets'a svitanok (The sunrise is already battling the night)
2009 — Zabuv ty son – vsoho žyvoho vtixu (You've forgotten the dream, the delight of everyone living)
2009 — Ty čuyeš klyč: 'Zroby – i vse tvoje!' (You hear the call: 'Do – and everything is yours')
2009 — Warner Sisters Present
2009 — In via veritas
2009 — I. D. L. F.
2009 — Homo homini lupus est
2009 — Sonny
2009 — Nevidomyj 1
2009 — Nevidomyj 2
2010 — Навернення Савла (Saul's return)
2010 — Ecce homo
2010 — Hosti
2010 — Žertvoprynošenja (Sacrifice)
2010 — Nasamkinec (At the end)
2010 — Kajin (Cain)
2010 — Avtoportret (Autoportrait)
2010 — Ja viruju! (I believe!)
2010 — Marnota (Futility)
2011 — Dialoh (Dialogue)
2012 — Smert' Hectora (Death of Hector)
2012 — Hniv Ahillesa (The Rage of Achilles)
2012 — Masakra I (Massacre I)
2013 — Podvyh Menelaja (Menelaus's Deed )
2013 — Masakra II
2014 — Masakra III
2014 — Uryvok I (Excerpt I)
2014 — Uryvok II
2014 — Uryvok III
2016 — Marsovi dity (The Children of Mars)
Selected personal exhibitions:
1999 — Гімн Герою (Hymn to the Hero, Dzyga Gallery, Lviv)
2004 — Сімейний альбом (Family Album, Lviv Art Gallery)
2006 — WY&МИ (Pociąg do sztuki Gallery in Warsaw; Dzyga Gallery in Lviv)
2009 — Warner sisters presents (Ya Gallery Art Center, Kyiv)
2011 — Ecce Homines (Ya Gallery Art Center, Kyiv)
2014 — Іліада (Illiad, Ya Gallery Art Center, Kyiv)
Group/tandem exhibitions:
2007 — reANIMATION (Lviv Art Gallery)
2009 — Народне актуальне. Портрет (Folk Contemporary. A Portrait, Ya Gallery Art Center, Kyiv)
2009 — Мінімистецтво (Miniart, Ya Gallery Art Center, Kyiv)
2010 — I don't like fish (Ya Gallery Art Center, Kyiv)
2010 — Бебібум (Babyboom, Ya Gallery Art Center, Kyiv)
2010 — На столі. Народне актуальне (Folk Contemporary. On the Table, Ya Gallery Art Center, Kyiv)
2011 — Слово (Word, Ya Gallery Art Center, Kyiv)
2011 — Нові старі майстри (New Old Masters, Dnipro; Lviv)
2012 — Genius loci — Геній місця! (Lviv Art Gallery)
2013 — Lyman ІІ. Triennale of Contemporary Ukrainian Art (Lublin)
2013 — Louvre (Lviv Palace of Art)
2016 — В очікуванні героя (Waiting for the Hero, International Cultural Center, Krakow)
2016 — Богдановіч/ Равський (Bohdanowicz/Ravskyi, Center for Urban History, Lviv)
2017 — Правдою мистецтва є фікція (Truth of Art Is Fiction, COME IN Gallery, Kharkiv)
2019 — Angels (Lviv National Art Gallery)
Other:
Ravskyi has designed album covers for music bands, such as Pikkardiyska Tertsia (Sad anhelskykh pisen, 1996), Plach Yeremiyi (Nay bude vse yak ye) and others.
Sources
1. Borys Filonenko, Louvre. Volodymyr Kostyrko, Yevhen Ravskyi, (Kyiv: Art Book, 2017), 208 (Борис Філоненко, Лувр. Володимир Костирко, Євген Равський, (Київ: Артбук, 2017), 2008)
2. Nataliya Kosmolinska, " 'Iliad': A Reload", Zbruč, 2014 (Наталія Космолінська, "'Іліада': перезавантаження", Zbruč, 2014) [accessed 11.11.2020]
3. Nataliya Kosmolinska, "'Genius loci — Genius of Space' Has Been Presented in Rzeszow", Zbruč, 2013 (Наталія Космолінська, "'Genius loci — Геній місця' представили у Ряшеві", Zbruč, 2013) [accessed 11.11.2020]
4. Nataliya Kosmolinska, "Louvre" — Game challenge, Zbruč, 2013 (Наталія Космолінська, "'Лувр' — виклик гри", Zbruč, 2013) [accessed 11.11.2020]
5. "Project реАНІМАЦІЯ-reANIMATION" Vgolos, 2007 ("Проект реАНІМАЦІЯ-reANIMATION", Вголос, 2007) [accessed 11.11.2020]
6. Anatoliy Zvizhynskyi, "Galicia Kult: An Attempt of an Artistic Intervention", Zbruč, 2016 (Анатолій Звіжинський, "Галіція Культ: спроба мистецької інтервенції", Zbruč, 2016) [accessed 11.11.2020]
7. Viktoria Bavykina, "Kharkiv Dimenstion on the 'new-old masters': Vlodko Kostyrko and Yevhen Ravskyi", lb.ua, 2018 (Вікторія Бавикіна, "Харківський вимір 'нових старих майстрів': Влодко Костирко та Євген Равський", lb.ua, 2018) [accessed 11.11.2020]
8. Viktoria Tsymbalista, Lesia Mezhva, "Faith in God Is The Same As Love: It Either Is There, or It Is Not — Yevhen Ravskyi, 48, Artist", Gazeta.ua, 2015 (Вікторія Цимбаліста, Леся Межва, "'Віра в Бога – так само, як любов: або є, або її немає', — Євген Равський, 48 років, художник", Gazeta.ua, 2015) [accessed 11.11.2020]
9. Yevhen Ravskyi on ArtLvivOnline [accessed 11.11.2020]
10. Yevhen Ravskyi on Ya Gallery. Pavlo Hudimov Art Center Web-Site [accessed 11.11.2020]
By Anastasiia Marusiy
Edited by Bohdan Shumylovych and Olha Zarechnyuk
Created with the support of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation
