Art and Resistance: New Perspectives from an Odesa Artist
Odesa artist Denis Nedoluzhenko, currently serving as a junior sergeant in the State Special Transport Service, has participated in the exhibition "FRONTMEN: The Art of Resistance," which runs from April 24 to 27 in Kyiv.
The exhibition is part of the "Book Country" festival and brings together artists whose work reflects their personal experiences of war and resistance.
Denis Nedoluzhenko's series titled "Motorola 1917" exemplifies the artistic deconstruction of Soviet and contemporary Russian imperial myths.
"Before mobilization, I was focused on painting and ceramics, which was my source of income, but military service provided a new impetus for my creativity. During my service, I stumbled upon Soviet propaganda literature in old textbooks, and that sparked an idea: I imagined myself as a student of that era forced to study the 'heroes' of the empire. As a small act of resistance, I began to paint over these portraits, deconstructing the myth. Each piece became a form of protest and a reflection of our time of struggle," the artist explained.
Born in 1987 in the village of Chizhove in the Berezivka district of Odesa region, Denis graduated from Odesa National University named after I.I. Mechnikov, majoring in microbiology and general virology. He has participated in art exhibitions since 2018 and currently lives and works in Odesa, focusing on painting, sculpture, and decorative ceramics. His main styles include expressionism, neo-expressionism, and new materiality.
Meanwhile, a posthumous exhibition of photographs titled "Lines of Fracture" by French photographer and multiple award winner Matthieu Chazal has opened in Odesa. Matthieu Chazal spent nearly two decades traveling around the Black and Mediterranean Seas, documenting war from the Balkans to the Caucasus, from Greece to Armenia, and from Ukraine to Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran.
