Wodeman

Wodeman is a Ukrainian contemporary artist, philosopher, and civil activist. He has been engaged in the arts since the late 1990s, driven by a love for artistic expression rather than the pursuit of a traditional career. In 2000s he co-organized several most significant exhibitions that presented Ukrainian contemporary art to the global audience including ‘Verkreuzungen’ (June – September, 2001) at the National Arts Museum in Vienna and International Festival of Modern Art in Magdeburg (2004 – 2005). Working primarily in painting, digital, and mixed media, Wodeman explores color harmonies, the symbolism of objects, forms, phenomena, and ideas, and the connections between them. Wodeman opened a new chapter in his life, this time as a professional artist, in 2024 with his solo exhibition, In Search of the Unknown Hero, at the Museum of Ideas in Lviv, one of the first galleries and non-profit institutions in independent Ukraine, founded in 1992. Recently, his artwork was also selected for the group exhibition Resilience Formula, organized and curated by the Modern Art Research Institute of the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine. Currently on display in Kyiv, this exhibition features a selection of renowned Ukrainian artists, with emerging talents also represented. In 2024, he participated in two further group exhibitions: his Faces of Silence series was featured in Transcendence - Artists of Ukraine, held from December 6 to 21 at an.ä.log.sf gallery in San Francisco, and his Meditations From the Road series was showcased in Sugar-Free, which ran from December 12 to January 12 at MRIYA gallery in Tribeca, New York. Having studied and collaborated privately with some of the best artists, Wodeman has undertaken numerous research projects and creative experiments over the past two decades. He is considering making some of them public at a future time, when the moment feels right. Born in 1975 in a small town in the forest-rich northern region of Ukraine, Wodeman (whose Ukrainian surname literally means 'wooden') has resided permanently in Kyiv since 1992, when not traveling the world or retreating to his beloved countryside.