Customers rate Singulart 4.9/5
Singulart is rated 4.9/5 by over 20,000 customers
Oleksandr Balbyshev
Ukraine
Related collection
Artworks Inspired by Jutta Koether
453 pieces
Artist highlights
- Social Media Star
- Experienced Artist
Discover the creation in interiors
Other artworks by Oleksandr Balbyshev
Artwork details
- Medium : Oil on Canvas
- Other details : Artwork on supported wooden frame. Artwork framed.
- Dimensions : 37.4x29.5in
About this artwork
This is an oil painting on the old portrait of Lenin. The canvas is a little damaged. Unframed painting 80 x 60 cm.
In 2015 the Ukrainian government banned all symbols and images associated with the USSR. But numerous oil portraits, sculptures, monuments and other images of Lenin began to be removed from public places decades before the "decommunization laws". What happened to the hundreds of thousands portraits of former Soviet leader? Many of… them are already destroyed. Some of them had been left in attics or basements. Oleksandr is looking for all these forgotten things and giving them a new life and a new artistic content.
In 2015 the Ukrainian government banned all symbols and images associated with the USSR. But numerous oil portraits, sculptures, monuments and other images of Lenin began to be removed from public places decades before the "decommunization laws". What happened to the hundreds of thousands portraits of former Soviet leader? Many of… them are already destroyed. Some of them had been left in attics or basements. Oleksandr is looking for all these forgotten things and giving them a new life and a new artistic content.
Oleksandr Balbyshev
Ukraine
« My art is selfish. Picturing something on my canvas, I take it into my soul. I draw only what I consider very beautiful, what I want to possess. »
Oleksandr Balbyshev is a Ukrainian contemporary artist based in Germany. Combining oil painting with Soviet-era found objects, his practice explores queer identity, masculinity, vulnerability, historical memory, and ideological symbols.
His paintings focus on the male body, using vivid color, sensuality, and art-historical references to challenge discomfort around male nudity. He presents masculinity through tenderness, desire, uncertainty, and emotional openness rather than dominance.
A second direction transforms Soviet portraits, sculptures, and propaganda objects. Through overpainting, fragmentation, and playful interventions, Balbyshev strips them of ideological authority and creates new visual and emotional meanings.
Both directions connect personal experience with questions of identity, memory, power, and cultural transformation. His works are held in private collections across Europe, North America, Australia, and beyond.
His paintings focus on the male body, using vivid color, sensuality, and art-historical references to challenge discomfort around male nudity. He presents masculinity through tenderness, desire, uncertainty, and emotional openness rather than dominance.
A second direction transforms Soviet portraits, sculptures, and propaganda objects. Through overpainting, fragmentation, and playful interventions, Balbyshev strips them of ideological authority and creates new visual and emotional meanings.
Both directions connect personal experience with questions of identity, memory, power, and cultural transformation. His works are held in private collections across Europe, North America, Australia, and beyond.
Credentials
- Social Media Star
- Experienced Artist
