24/7 VALENCIA: COULD YOU TELL US MORE ABOUT THIS NEW EXHIBITION THAT IS FOR A GOOD CAUSE CONCERNING UKRANIA?

HELEN RITZ GALLERY: “Sculptures by Vasyl Byk are created to be able to go around them and see, and also, which is important, to touch them and to feel them too. They seem to be encouraging you to communicate with them in this particular way. His “Ladies” are possibly on the top of the tactile rating. You touch them with your sight and feel like touching them by hand. You pat the sculpture and feel with the palm of your hand how differently every image responds to you.

Vasyl Byk also tries to surmount all that is featureless and boring, washing away the borders between sensual and visual, fantastic and realistic world of nature and human soul. This interlacement creates flowing images, which seem to be avoiding trivial explanations. The artist’s unrestrained desire to “embrace as much as possible” multiplied by the moderate expressiveness of his tools makes possible for viewers to read accustomed signs and symbols differently, and as a result “feel” differently.

Some works are only for interiors, others can be easily imagined as big as a monument. However, both have the measure of the amiability so characteristic of Vasyl, which allow both for the author and the viewer to keep aside and not to get involved into the problems of conflict between modern and post-modern, as sculptures do not necessarily have to be aggressively original or to subjugate the space of co-existence. Vasyl’s works are really friendly in that sense, which implies a life shared with another person under the same roof.

Profit from sales goes to a charitable foundation for the needs of children affected by the war in Ukraine. The inauguration of this special exhibition is on Friday, March 10th at 18h.”

Interview by 24/7 Valencia team

Article copyright ’24/7 Valencia’

Helen Ritz Gallery