Aksenenko Yevhen

Shelter
Shelter 2024, concrete, styrofoam, textile, 200x80x50 cm
About the artwork

The presented art object symbolizes solitude, alienation from reality, and internal emigration. We accept what contributes to our healing, creates comfortable and harmonious conditions for creating coziness, while distancing ourselves from what may harm us, setting up defenses against threats.

In nature, the defenseless create camouflage against predators. An insect in the sensitive stage of the imago maturation transforms its cocoon into a hard shell, allowing it to protect its internal transformation. It needs time to create wings to reach celestial heights, while it remains hidden in its world, bound in darkness and compressed in the embryo.

Everyone needs their own space where they can be vulnerable, surrounding themselves with what is close, familiar, and joyful. We need this capsule, this strong covering that protects our fragile nature. This isolation requires solitude and being alone with our memories and symbols of love, attachment, fragility, sincerity, represented by soft toys. This childhood is a time of carefree living and self-discovery that will always be with us and will never go away, but it must be treated carefully, shielded from cold, mold, and dampness that seep in from the outside during inclement weather and provoke illness and depression.

The sarcophagus also serves as a symbol of eternal oblivion and the rest to which we are all destined to come sooner or later, but we dare to submit to this impulse to isolate ourselves only in the face of dire danger, a threat that erases all humanity within us. By distancing ourselves in this way, there is an opportunity to protect and preserve ourselves from catastrophe. This asceticism is a form of modern reclusiveness, as once, weary of civilization, hermits sought that exaltation and encounter with the truth.

Weary from the search for ourselves, the quest for justice, etc., we are left with only rest, which will undoubtedly return our strength for future struggles, securing ourselves for a while with strong walls and partitions.

Co-author of the concept
Art historian Maria Dotsenko

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Aksenenko Yevhen
Date of birth: 1979
Place of residence: Kyiv

Ukrainian artist.

Education:

2024 – National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture

Exhibitions:

2024 – Levkas Miniatures 2024, White World Center for Contemporary Art, Kyiv

2024 – “Consumer” solo exhibition, art space “Center,” NAFAA, Kyiv

2024 – “Exhibition of the Best Works of Students from the Fall Semester,” Fine Arts Museum, NAFAA, Kyiv

2024 – “The Skull in Plastic Anatomy” exhibition of first-year student works, NAFAA, National Museum of Medicine of Ukraine, Kyiv

2023-24 – “Ukraine and the European Union Together,” NSAU, Kyiv

2023 – “Winter Rhapsody,” NSAU, Kyiv

2023 – Third All-Ukrainian Levkas Biennale, White World Center for Contemporary Art, Kyiv

2023 – Art Project “Cosmogony of Meanings,” Korsak Museum of Contemporary Ukrainian Art, Lutsk

2021 – Art Project “Your Names, Ukraine,” Korsak Museum of Contemporary Ukrainian Art, Lutsk

2021 – Art Project “Immunity,” Korsak Museum of Contemporary Ukrainian Art, Lutsk

2020 – “Golf” solo exhibition, Golf Club “Gulfstream”

2020 – Art Project “Immunity,” Korsak Museum of Contemporary Ukrainian Art, Lutsk

2020 – “Kisses,” Tadzio Gallery, Kyiv

2019 – “Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky,” Sholom Aleichem Museum, Kyiv

2019 – Kiev Art Week, Bereznitsky Privat Space, Kyiv

2019 – Art Fair 14C, Jersey City

2018 – “Modern Visions” solo exhibition, Tadzio Gallery, Kyiv

2018 – Red Dot Miami

2018 – “Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky,” Chernihiv Regional Art Museum named after Hryhoriy Galagan, Chernihiv

2018 – “Golf” solo exhibition, Panacea, Parkovy Congress and Exhibition Center

2018 – Reveal International Contemporary Art Fair, New York

2016 – Gogol Fest “Art for Sale,” Kyiv

2016 – Art Project “Recipe for Utopia,” Institute of Contemporary Art Problems, National Academy of Arts of Ukraine, Kyiv

2014 – “For the Children of Donbas” charity auction, Tadzio Gallery, Kyiv

2014 – “Art Gives Warmth” exhibition auction, Free Space Smartville, Kyiv

2014 – “Hendrick Terbrugghen. ‘The Concert’ (1626) Modern Visions,” Tadzio Gallery, Kyiv

2013 – “Hendrick Terbrugghen. ‘The Concert’ (1626) Modern Visions,” Chernihiv Regional Art Museum named after Hryhoriy Galagan, Chernihiv

2013 – “Little Kisses,” Tadzio Gallery, Kyiv

2012 – “Kisses,” Tadzio Gallery, Kyiv

2012 – “In Search of Sherlock Holmes,” Tadzio Gallery, Kyiv

2012 – “Golf,” Golf Club “Gulfstream”

2012 – “Our Children” first charity auction, Kyiv

2011 – “Kisses,” Tadzio Gallery, Kyiv

2010 – “Kisses,” Tadzio Gallery, Kyiv

2010 – “Black and White,” Tadzio Gallery, Kyiv

2010 – “Parisian Impressions” solo exhibition, Kyiv

2009 – “Golf, Golf, Golf,” Tadzio Gallery, Kyiv

2009 – “Fine Art Ukraine,” Ukrainian House, Kyiv

2007 – “Meridian of the Heart” Kyiv-Chernivtsi-Paris

Catalog “Alphabet” Contemporary Ukrainian Art, 21st Century, Kyiv, 2009

Catalog “Our Children” First Charity Auction, Kyiv, 2012

Catalog “Hendrick Terbrugghen. Modern Visions,” Kyiv, 2013

Catalog “Golf, Alive, Modern Visions,” Kyiv, 2018

Catalog “Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky,” Chernihiv Regional Art Museum named after Hryhoriy Galagan, Chernihiv, 2018

Catalog “Immunity,” Korsak Museum of Contemporary Ukrainian Art, Lutsk

Catalog “Your Names, Ukraine,” Korsak Museum of Contemporary Ukrainian Art, Lutsk, 2021

Catalog “Cosmogony of Meanings,” Korsak Museum of Contemporary Ukrainian Art, Lutsk, 2023

Catalog “Third All-Ukrainian Levkas Biennale,” White World Center for Contemporary Art, Kyiv, 2023

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