Bogdan Shiptenko
Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine
I'm safe in my hometown. Obviously the war affected my paintings, especially the plots and themes.
I kept writing about things that worried me and always made me happy. My works have always had a good mood, good energy and an optimistic atmosphere. Most of the time they didn't lose those things. But in the first days and even the first weeks of the war, I could not take a brush or a pencil. It was scary because it wasn't clear what to expect or what to do next.
After 3-4 weeks of war, I went back to painting. And of course, now my work was about the war, and I was writing about everything that had happened since the beginning of the war. In one of my paintings, titled "Unbending Ukraine", I showed different people who did brave and heroic things for the good of Ukraine. I have shown how strong the will of our people is in this work. The next day I sold this painting and donated all the money to the needs of the Ukrainian military forces. I also painted "Azovstal in Mariupol", a landscape, to ask the rest of the world to help the people who stayed there to leave.
There are also sketches with a military theme. They are sad because they were drawn during the second week of the war. Fear, sadness, depression and not knowing what will happen next are all depicted in these sketches. But when spring came, I started going out to write in nature. When I write in nature, it helps me relax and enjoy it. Of course, you can see hope, courage, will, freedom and happiness in these landscapes. The sun, flowering trees, flowers and plants gave me energy and strength. Every morning when I wake up, I thank the Ukrainian Armed Forces for giving me hope. So now I paint both about the military and everyday life.
In my series of works with characters, I look at what people do. These are works where I talk about things that affect our lives or things without which we cannot imagine our lives. Things that will always be on our minds and hard to change, but have a direct effect on our lives. Since this painting and the other pieces in this series are mostly about people, these people are the main thing that drives humanity forward and backward at the same time. Much depends on people whether there will be peace or war tomorrow.
Figurative painting has become the space in which I reflect through my works the perceptions of the environment, and the activities of people, and where I apprehend this on a deep societal scale.
There are many figures in my paintings, where each character lives separately, but in an ideological sense they are all united in a common activity that brings them together and carries a meaningful message. Through my early works, cityscapes, I investigated the urban environment, urbanism, color relationships in paint, and the state and technical properties of watercolour. I have kept these techniques and often use them in my figurative work. They help me show a certain state, mood, or emotion through the texture of dry colors, the softness of cotton paper, and wet-on-wet watercolor painting techniques. It lets me show how the characters are put together more clearly and distinctly, and the plain background lets me show how I feel.
I use my art to show things that will always be on our minds and hard to change, but have a direct effect on our lives. I'm also getting better at experimenting with acrylics and texture pastes. Mixed media and my own thoughts help me understand and show the message I'm trying to send to the viewer.
Most of the time, I sell my paintings on the internet. Since 50-70% of my paintings are bought by people from other countries, it is very important for me to be able to sell them on sites like Artmajeur. It helps me a lot to keep drawing, pushes me to paint pictures with more meaning, and inspires me to make others happy with my art. I really appreciate what you are doing. I am happy that you support Ukraine and Ukrainian artists. I express my deep gratitude to you!
I would like to say a few things to people who might buy my art in the future. First, my paintings show the mood and feelings I had when painting them. Almost every one of my paintings has a story behind it. Thank you so much for caring about my paintings and helping me through this difficult time.
Bogdan Shiptenko
Browse the works of Bogdan Shiptenko
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