From 4 to 23 April 2018, the Gallery of the Lviv National Academy of Arts hosted “De:Forma” — an art project by two young artists working in abstract wooden sculpture, Nazar Symotiuk and Andrii Savchuk. Curator: Marta Iskiv.

About the project

In their works, both artists emphasise the natural qualities of wood as a traditional artistic material, revealing to the viewer its new visual, aesthetic and plastic possibilities. They refer to associations and to deformed natural motifs.

The key concept of the project is defining content — and the endless, intuitive search for a form to express it.

“In this way we try to minimise the interference of the conscious human mind in the process of shaping form.”
— Nazar Symotiuk and Andrii Savchuk

Exhibitions of this kind were very rare in Lviv, and few artists were working in this direction. The project set out to broaden the contemporary understanding of abstract sculpture in wood, to free it from traditional canons and to show it in a radically renewed format.

Both artists represent the Department of Artistic Wood of the Lviv National Academy of Arts and work in painting, design and wooden sculpture. By then they had taken part in numerous Ukrainian plein-airs and group exhibitions in Ukraine and abroad, including the Autumn Salon (Lviv), THE WOOD (Lviv), Forma (Lviv) and Roots Project (Berlin). “De:Forma” became the first personal debut of both artists, each with a distinct artistic voice.

My part of the show included colour reliefs and free-standing wooden sculptures.

Installation views

Opening

If you’d like to know more about any of the works, just write to me — I reply personally.