His style is easy to recognize: most often Serhiy paints on wood, using the technique of icon painting "levkas". There is no politics in his works, there are no actual subjects consonant with our time. They reflect the artist's personal world: a world that no longer exists in reality.

The artist from Donbas Sergey Prin, who took his works from Donetsk literally under fire, recalls: 

"I came from Kharkiv to calm Kyiv - from my balcony I could see four rockets coming from the shelling. In mid-July I came to Kharkiv - 12 rockets at once during the night. Mid-November - again in Kyiv, massive shelling. A magnet? In 14 - spring, Yevpatoria. I'm watching clowns, I'm going further to Donetsk. And here they are. We are on the summer playground with cognac, next to the Donbass Arena - we are watching the rockets arriving at the airport. Rocket attraction".

Personal exhibitions

1998 - Regional House of Culture Workers (Donetsk)
1999 - Gallery "36" (Kyiv)
1999 - Kyiv Patriarchate of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church (Kyiv)
1999 - Gallery "Griffin" (Kyiv)
1999 - Gallery "Azhur" (Donetsk)
2000 - Salon-gallery "Dais" (Kharkiv)
2001 - Gallery "Triptych" (Kyiv)
2002 - French Cultural Center (Kyiv) 2002 - Gallery "36" (Kyiv)
2002 - Gallery "Bridge" (Odesa)
2003 - Kharkiv City Art Gallery (Kharkiv)
2003 - Ukrainian Bank for Entrepreneurship and Partnership Development (Kyiv)
2005 - "Fruktopia", "Apartment Baboon"
2005 - Gallery "36"
2005 - Exhibition hall of the DonNMSU (Donetsk), together with Prin SI.
2005 - Exhibition hall named after Kuindzhi (Mariupol). Kuindzhi (Mariupol), together with Prin SI.
2006 - Gallery "Triptych" (Kyiv)
2006 - "Apartment Baboon" (Kyiv)
2007 - Art gallery "13" (Donetsk)
2007 - "Entresol", together with Prin S.I., Kyiv
2010 - Exhibition hall of the Donetsk Art Museum
2012 - House of Artist of the National Academy of Arts, together with O. Shumlyaev, Kyiv
2012 - House of the artist, Donetsk
2012 - Exhibition hall of the Simferopol Art Museum, Simferopol, Crimea

2001-2007 Apartment exhibitions, Kyiv

А. Kurkov - writer
T. Montik - journalist Attaché of the Embassy of Turkey
Sergio Martes - First Secretary, Deputy Head of Mission of the Embassy of Italy

Major exhibitions:

1998 - The first festival vernissage of fine arts "Ukrainian diversity". Donetsk,
2000 - International exhibition-auction of modern fine art "Art-for", Donetsk,
2001 - "My land - my Donbass", the palace "Ukraine", Kyiv,
2001 - Modern still life and landscape, Kharkiv Art Museum, Kharkiv,
2001 - "Ukraine" in Ukraine (anniversary exhibition), gallery "Lavra", Kyiv,
2002 - "Ukraine in Moscow", Central House of Artists, Moscow,
2005 - Kyiv Opera House (together with Sharashidze, Svireli),
2005 - "World of Levkas", gallery "Sofia - A", Kyiv,
2005 - "The World of Levkas and Enamel", gallery "Yes - Yes - Yes", Odesa,
2005 - "The World of Levkas and Enamel", Art Museum, Chernivtsi,
2005 - "The World of Levkas and Enamel", Ivano-Frankivsk,
2005 - Regional art exhibition dedicated to the City Day, Donetsk,
2005 - Art plein air (Gurzuf, Crimea),
2006 - "The World of Levkas and Enamel", Lviv,
2007 - "All-Ukrainian Triennial of Painting Kyiv-2007", Kyiv,
2007 - "All-Ukrainian exhibition dedicated to Kuindzhi", Mariupol,
2007 - "Art-Kyiv", Ukrainian House, Kyiv. Kyiv,
2007 - "World of Levkas" - Bucharest, Ukrainian Cultural Center, Romania,
2008 - "World of Levkas" - Chernivtsi, Ukraine,
2008 - "World of Levkas" - Vilnius, Art Museum, Lithuania,
2008 - "The World of Levkas" - Riga, Latvia,
2008 - All-Ukrainian exhibition to the 75th anniversary of the NUAU, House of Artists, Kyiv,
2008 - Charity auction "Art Bridge", Kyiv Museum of Russian Art, Kyiv,
2009 - "The World of Levkas" - Krakow, Poland,
2009 - "Donetsk wind, 20 years later", exhibition hall of Donetsk Art Museum, Donetsk,
2011 - All-Ukrainian art exhibition dedicated to Independence Day, Kyiv,
2012 - Biennale of watercolors, Art Museum, Simferopol,
2013 - Triennial of Painting, House of Artist, Kyiv.

Eclectic life of Serhiy Prin

Contemplating Serhiy Prin's paintings, it is as if you are immersed in the world of biblical and evangelical stories, Ukrainian folklore, images of the European Middle Ages, and European masters of the early 20th century. The realization comes that his painting is the world of a good fairy tale, which is so lacking in our pragmatic time. I want to believe Sergey and think that this is how it is: people fly, cats think a lot and are sad, and carousels and love are the most important things that can be in the world.

Born in 1962 in Donetsk. He graduated from the Donetsk Art School and the Kharkiv Art and Industrial Institute, majoring in "Monumental and Decorative Art".

Since 2000, he has been a member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine.

In 2002, he joined the circle of leading artists of the country, the list of which was published in the annual all-Ukrainian publication "Face of Ukraine", his canvases were highly appreciated by professionals.

Participant of regional, regional, all-Ukrainian and international exhibitions. The works were shown at exhibitions in Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, the International Exhibition-Auction of Contemporary Fine Art "Agi£og" (Donetsk), the jubilee exhibition "Ukraine in Ukraine" (Kyiv), exhibitions "Ukraine in Moscow" (CBH, Moscow), "The World of Levkas"

(Kyiv, Odesa, Lviv, Chernivtsi) etc.

Most of the paintings of the Donetsk native are story compositions, their own fairy-tale world, where inanimate objects are endowed with emotions and are able to feel beauty and ugliness, perceive someone else's pain as their own. On individual canvases, the author can be ironic, sometimes sarcastic, as if inviting the viewer to dialogue, discussion, forcing to think about how we live and where we are going.

- Your creativity is very diverse. What style do you work in?

- I have developed my own "language". There are almost no realistic works, because this genre is not particularly interesting to me. Of course, from time to time I paint such paintings, but mainly they are creative canvases with unique images.

- Along with the themes of the city, the world and music, reflected in the form of peculiar pictorial fairy tales-parables, in your creative laboratory religious themes also occupy an important place. What are you trying to convey to the audience thanks to these symbols?

- Turning to biblical and evangelical subjects is a philosophical understanding of human life on Earth, such eternal and ambiguous concepts as good and evil, joy and sorrow, love and hatred.

- You often use the ancient technique of levkas, refracted through the prism of modern art. Say a few words about her.

- This ancient technique of priming wood, which came from Byzantium, was known since the time of Ancient Russia and was successfully used by icon painters. The facial expressions of all the heroes of my canvases also come from there - from the gracious faces of Rublev, and not at all from Theophanes the Greek, who threaten punishment.

- A characteristic feature of your paintings is the narrowness of the world and the overpopulation of canvases...

- There is space only where they love, because there are only two people there, for them no one else exists...

– Princesses with infants, merry-go-rounds, magical hats and clever cats, Iranian hunting, completely habitable gingerbread houses that easily fit in the palm of your hand, multi-wheeled trains and equal-sized saints... All these heroes, despite expectations, are silent and focused, chaste and weightless, on the verge of being able to fly. What is it connected with?

Volatility - from the composition, asceticism and silence - from the palette, chastity - from the technique.

- The atmosphere of most of your canvases is emphatically carnivalesque - masks and costumes, clown kings and queens, loss of sense of time. Are spatial boundaries as tight as temporal boundaries for you?

- The dignity of an artist is the ability to see, to reward any ordinary thing with a fabulous side. I try to let the characters float freely in a clogged aquarium or the airless atmosphere of an elevator stuck halfway. Movement as such, senseless circling-swimming is the main plot of these paintings. The thinking here is demonstrably anti-historical: instead of movements towards a goal, there is a self-conscious rotation in place, instead of a coherent plot, there are scenes mounted according to the principle of a circus parade-alle.

Ksenia Faichuk

Business Bulletin, No. 4 (251), 2015