past
Mikhailo Deyak. Rudolf Burda DIALOG
07 February —
25 February 2018

selected works

about

Voloshyn Gallery presents a collaborative exhibition of the Czech artist Rudolf Burda and a Ukrainian Mikhailo Deyak “Dialog”.  A visitor will have an opportunity to see a dialogue between sculptures of glass and laconic landscapes on glass at the exhibition.

The series of minimalist landscapes by Deyak is named Space, which famously can be interpreted as “cosmos”, though the author rather meant a more general value of “expanse”. In these works the artist is not willing to impose his vision or thoughts on the spectator, rather he reckons upon the spectator to enter into a dialogue with the work and him- or herself. Space is a psychological project about our inner world.

Rudolf Burda also presents a very personal and at once clearly specified rendering of the expanse topic. His sculptures really look like space objects, or even an embodiment of human viewpoint on structure of the galaxy. On the face of it composition-enclosed spherical art-objects declare to be massing essence, which can be easily readable. But simultaneously they can be perceived as separate self-sufficing depths.

Under overall minimalist tendency of the artists’ works, the selection process of the materials and parlance already becomes a creative act. Minimum of means and maximum of results — it may be one more feature, which unites both authors in this so called Dialog. Without any collusion they both choose only the necessary. And everything which can turn out to be excessive and distracting from the main theme is just not used. This feature tends to identify the real artist.

Burda’s and Deyak’s subjectivity, albeit is rather obvious, gives an opportunity for a spectator to correlate his or her own emotional and creative experience with the artists’ sentence. The authors as if foresee a certain “starting point”, from which a spectator can proceed with the topic independently. They only give a “sufficient reason” for the creative act to take place. But who and how proceeds with it and finalizes it — that is the freedom of each particular beholder.

The artists don’t have absolutely inanimate nature or, more specifically, substance. Sometimes there is some ineffable, but also rather distinctly audible interplay of materials and narratives. The symbols are totally dissolved in the textures and stains. However, their occurrence in each work is evident.

Rudolf Burda was born in 1973 in the industrial town of Mladá Boleslav in Central Europe, Czech Republic. In 1987-1991 he studied at School of Applied Arts in Turnov. In 1992 he was an intern in California, USA, and in 1993 founded his own studio in Czech Republic. In 2010 he got fascinated by glass as material, and since then he creates objects and sculptures of it. The main material he is working now with is glass, though he often combines it with stainless steel in his works. Glass works of Rudolf Burda uncover natural layers of transparent and colored glass, and remind of ubiquitous Universal Ocean of cosmic forces, which surrounds everything. The artist’s works are actively shown at the international exhibitions and art-shows, and also are stored in numerous private collections in Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Great Britain, USA, and the Middle East countries. Burda lives and works in the town of Mladá Boleslav, Czech Republic.

Mikhailo Deyak was born in 1984 in the village of Zolotarevo, Khust rayon, in Transcarpathia, Ukraine. Since 1999 to 2003 he studied at Uzhhorod college of arts named after A. Erdeli. In 2003 he entered Kyiv National Academy of Visual Arts and Architecture, where he was a student at the workshop of V. Zabashta under the supervision of head teacher I. Melnychuk. Nowadays the artist is working at the edge of neo-expressionism and minimalism, experiments with the materials. Voloshyn Gallery is cooperating with the artist under exclusive terms, and for two years is representing Deyak’s works at the Scope Art Show in Basel (Switzerland), Miami, and New York (USA). The artist’s pictures can often be found at the auctions, in the last few years his works were presented and sold at the Phillips Auction for five times. Mikhailo Deyak conducts vigorous exhibition activities, for instance, in March 2017 in New York a personal exhibition of the artist took place at the Ukrainian Institute of America. The artist lives and works in Kyiv, Ukraine.