Artist ANDRII STRAKHOV in Conversation on 'GRACES' with gallerist Giovanni Giusti and Dennis Bartok

An online event celebrating the solo exhibition 'Graces' with Ukrainian artist ANDRII STRAKHOV, gallerist Giovanni Giusti of GalleryX Dublin, PRS Executive Director Dennis Bartok, and translator Olena Zots
On View: April 21 - May 20, 2023
Regular Exhibit Hours: Tuesday-Friday 12-6pm, and by appointment ([e-mail])
PRS Hansell Gallery
ANDRII STRAKHOV on 'Graces'
​I created the Graces series between 2021 and 2022. It was made in a few days before the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The last works in the series contain features of disturbance and are filled with melancholy.
The Graces series is part of an archive of my works which was sent, after the beginning of the war, to Ireland to GalleryX and saved by Giovanni Giusti.
The series "Graces" is an expression of my ideas associated with the horror of modern life and with the embodiment of mystical aspirations. I tried to transform my nightmares and dreams into weird images touched with visual poetics and sympathy for the grotesque.
In this way, the image of the Greek Chimera is close to me. It was not aware of its own ugliness and suffered from the general hatred of others. For me, the image of the Chimera is not just a monstrous creature, but a living, gentle and wonderful being that has no place in this cruel reality.
ANDRII STRAKHOV (b. 1973) is a Ukrainian artist who mostly works through the medium of collage. After a childhood spent in the Urals, at the age of 13 he moved to Boyarka, near Kiiv, where he still lives, just in time to be affected by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. He has since been involved in music and in the Ukrainian underground culture.
GalleryX is a new gallery in Dublin, Ireland specialising in figurative and surrealist art. Their focus is on the fantastical, the sensual and the macabre; on alternative desire and tormented bodies; on the bizarrely beautiful, the unsettling and the grotesque. Our intent is to facilitate, curate and showcase new alternative work from emerging Irish and international artists and to host visiting artists from the global community. // www.galleryx.ie/
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION:
PRS presents an exhibition of collages Χάριτες (Graces) by ANDRII STRAKHOV, a Ukrainian artist whose striking, meticulously composed images evoke a sense of mystery, fantasy, and horror. The imagery in ANDRII’s work draws heavily from the aesthetics of Slavic folklore and of the dreamlike world of a fractured childhood.
All collages are for sale. Please inquire at the PRS Bookstore.www.prs.org/store/c78/Artwork...