Skrypka, Valeriy

Strangers, 2020
Oil on Belgian linen
30 x 48 in
Puppet maker,
Oil on Belgian linen
60 x 48 in
Family, 2014
Oil on Belgian linen
60 x 36 in
Mannequins, 2018
Oil on Belgian linen
42 x 80 in
Person with Mannequins, 2008
Oil on Belgian linen
40 x 96 in
Awakening, 2013
Oil on Belgian linen
42 x 80 in
Tree of Life, 2008
Oil on Belgian linen
30 x 42 in
Fall Wind, 2008
Oil on Belgian linen
40 x 28 in
Returning to Paradise, 2008
Oil on Belgian linen
30 x 42 in
Thoughtfulness
Oil on Belgian linen
13 3/4 x 9 3/8 in
Musician, 2013
Oil on Belgian linen
58 x 28 in
Equilibrium, 2013
Oil on Belgian linen
58 x 26 in
Visitor, II, 2014
Oil on Belgian linen
58 x 28 in
New Cloak, 2014
Oil on Belgian linen
54 x 24 in
The Path to the Sun, 2015
Oil on Belgian linen
64 x 40 in
Both in the Field
Oil on Belgian linen
64 x 42 in
Magic Trees #1
Oil on Belgian linen
44 x 64 in
Magic Tree #3
Oil on Belgian linen
64 x 40 in
Magic Tree, 2015
Oil on Belgian linen
64 x 40 in
Controller of fate, 2008
Oil on Belgian linen
44 x 60 in
Golden Morning, 2010
Oil on Belgian linen
40 x 54 in
White Sail, 2009
Oil on Belgian linen
15 x 20 in
Travel in the Opposite Direction
Oil on Belgian linen
42 x 64 in
Travel in the Opposite Direction
Watercolor, paper
18.5 x 14 in
Hunters, 2019
Watercolor on paper
14 x 18 in
The Silence in the Garden
Watercolor, paper
18.5 x 14 in
Parting with Angel
Watercolor, paper
18 3/8 x 15 7/8 in
Seekers I, 2019
Watercolor on paper
8 x 18 in
Stricken II, 2019
Watercolor on paper
13 x 18 in
Valeriy Skrypka was born in 1964 in Zaporizhia, Ukraine into a family of artists. He graduated from the renowned Kyiv Academy of the Arts with a Master’s Degree in art in 1992. Skrypka’s work has been exhibited in museums and galleries internationally. He melds contemporary narrative symbolism with the iconography of ancient, mythological traditions of Ukraine to create imaginative works of art that shed light on universal experience. Sam Hunter, emeritus professor of art history at Princeton University, has noted that Skrypka’s aggressive use of paint, in combination with delicate and ethereal subjects, results in totally original works of art. The figures, animals, birds, and objects, touchstones from Ukraine’s ancient past and traditions are skillfully blended with the artist’s own original expressions of contemporary experience. The paintings are strong examples of the artist’s ability to create aesthetic harmony, while not flinching from the contradictory discordant realities of twenty-first century life. These profound and enduring works of art invite the viewer to contemplate the very nature of existence.

Artist's Statement

In my creativity, I aspire to interpret the inconceivableness of the universe, in which chaos wondrously coexists with the magnetism of an orderly rhythm. The components of my vision of this universe are fantastic combinations of its deformed elements. These are definite symbolic markings for speculating about the mystery of the world, a temptation to contemplate. The so-called surrealistic stresses of my fantasies are not marshaled to elicit gothic horror or disgust but rather an idyll, a unity of rhythm and motion, motion and support. My mythological beings are sphinx-like mysteries, which everyone interprets in his or her own way, yet none has solved.  My creativity is a perpetual search for true understanding of the unfathomable. It is why favorite mythological symbols in my work such as the apple of paradise, a wondrous bird, and the itinerant gardener, all exist in perpetual states of metamorphosis.