Vladimir Sakhnenko

Vladimir Sakhnenko was born in 1930 in the village of Sulskoye, Sumy Oblast, and studied at the Surikov Moscow State Academic Art Institute. The artist died in July 2008, leaving behind a vast body of work.

His clay vases and amphorae, quaint fish, frogs, and crocodiles, monumental reliefs depicting birds in a tree or imaginary creatures comprise a world of distinctly bright and ornamental artefacts, an entire ceramic culture. The abstract patterns and figurative compositions decorating these creations evoke multiple associations from the realms of folk and contemporary art. In the early 1980s, Vladimir Sakhnenko created a large number of colourful impasto paintings: portraits, still lifes, and genre scenes. Their compositions are comprised of chromatically vibrant geometric shapes. They give an idea of the decorative method of Sakhnenko the ceramist, but also of his mural painter’s approach to crafting magnificent archetypal imagery based on conventionalised, stylised drawing.