feature: Oleksandr Balbyshev
Looking at one of Balbyshev’s paintings, the first thing you might notice is his use of bright, saturated colors, allowing a moment of distraction from “the problems of the gray, daily routine.” Continue examining, and you’ll see his pieces capture much more than a spectrum of colors. Being a queer artist in Ukraine, one of the biggest Soviet Republics, Balbyshev has known discrimination firsthand, and uses his art to answer the calls of representation and change. “I think the lgbtq+ community is a very important part of a developed society. Only together, can we enforce our rights. I live in a country with a very weak lgbtq+ community,” Balbyshev shares. “Because of that, Ukraine lgbtq+ people live in fear and don't have as many rights as other Ukrainians do. Lgbtq+ people need to lie about their sexual orientation or gender identity to avoid discrimination or violent harassment.”
These factors have a strong influence over Balbyshev’s work. He found it difficult to accept himself for who he was under the conditions of the hostile morality and toxic masculinity surrounding him. “[It] left indelible marks on my soul,” Balbyshev says, “I still feel a deep-seated, guilty feeling that I am not like most. Perhaps this shame can be seen in my paintings.” Though Balbyshev seems to use these oppositional forces to push himself forward. He says, “The hostile atmosphere made me stronger, and I learned how to succeed in a toxic environment.” In a way, he creates his own kind of protest posters, using bright colors and homoerotic themes, that challenge outdated Ukrainian morals.
“I draw inspiration from everywhere,” Balbyshev says, “The works of other artists, pop culture, someone’s post on instagram, a trip to a museum or flea market, a movie theatre or supermarket, books, the appearance of a passerby on the street, or a story of a friend. Anything can become the source of a new idea for me.” Each of his pieces begins with that spark of an idea- a vision presented as a reaction to one of these moments. His brain enthusiastically develops the idea from there, resulting in eye-popping, and overtly sexual freeze-frames.
The most prevalent theme in Balbyshev’s art is the sensuality and sexuality of attractive young men. “It’s a means rather than an end in itself,” he says. Balbyshev wants the viewer to see beyond the male form, to ultimately find a “realm of ideas.” He attempts to create realities as visions of worlds within worlds. His work allows a chance to reflect on our subconscious relationship to attractive male figures, and to discover truth in each unique emotional response.
An activity that has also become essential to Balbyshev’s practice is the modification of old Soviet-era portraits and sculptures of Lenin. “I paint on top of old portraits of Lenin -fragments from famous paintings- or drip paint on them, cut the canvases into pieces and chaotically glue them,” he says. He paints his Lenin sculptures in “funny colors',' and glues various kitschy objects to them. He defends what he refers to as a mild obsession by saying “First of all, it amuses me. The second, with all the fun of this manipulation, old propaganda images acquire new meanings, an anatomical combination of play and seriousness. I don't really know why I do that, but I can't stop.”
Currently, Balbyshev is working on a project to raise awareness of discrimination of the naked male body depicted in art in recent centuries. He was inspired when he came across the research of the feminist group, Guerrilla Girls. About 30 years ago the Girls determined that males only represented 15% of the nudes on canvas exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Balbyshev predicts, “today, the situation has not changed much.” He believes that the root of this phenomenon is ingrained deep in our culture and requires additional study and focus. “I integrate a male body's sensual beauty with paintings of world-famous artists like Claude Monet, David Hockney, Amedeo Modigliani, and Paul Cézanne. This is a kind of reflection on how the art of the last centuries could have been, if the male body had not been discriminated against,” he says.
Oleksander Balbyshev graduated from The Prydniprovska State Academy of Civil Engineering and Architecture in 2012. He currently lives and works in Dnipro, Ukraine, and his work is displayed mostly in private collections, in more than twenty countries across the globe.
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Oleksandr Balbyshev
website :: www.balbyshev.com
instagram :: @oleksandrbalbyshev
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images provided by Oleksandr Balbyshev
