Hnylytskyi Oleksandr

Oleksandr Hnylytskyi (1961 ) was a Ukrainian artist who was one of the pioneers of the Ukrainian New Wave.

In 1994 he became a member of the Kyiv art group named “Paris Commune”. From 1996 he was one of the founders and the head of the Institute of Unstable Thoughts. He worked on installation and video art and represented Ukraine at the Venice Biennale in 2007. Much of his work resonates with the Italian transavantgarde movement.

Oleksandr Hnylytskyi was born in Kharkiv in 1961, and in 1980 he graduated from Kharkiv state art school, faculty of theatrical and decoration painting. From the period of 1981–1987 Alexander studied at the Ukrainian State Academy of Art in Kyiv at the Department of Monumental Painting in Chekaniuk and Storozhenko’s studio. During this time he became one of the active participants of the Kyiv art group “Paris Commune”. In 1996, together with his wife and fellow artist, Lesia Zaiats they founded the NGO “Institution of Unstable Thoughts”. Together they had a daughter named Ksenia Hnylytska[1] who is also an artist and member of the group R.E.P. In the last years of his life he lived in Munich, Germany where he worked as a designer of products for television and cinema, as well as a conceptualist for animation. He died on November 1, 2009, in Kyiv from skin cancer.