The Beauty of Clichés

Of The National Geography series, canvas, oils

In the end of 1980s, Oleh Tistol burst into the space of arts of not only Ukraine, but of what nowadays is called ‘post-soviet’. At that time, there wasn’t lack of people who wished to create new picturesque and lifelike concepts, and many of them, like Tistol, stay in the status of living classics of topical arts. Exactly they are the measure of the domestic contemporary art.

A small painter is always a genius; but will he create something really worthy, personal, and outstanding, will be clear after he reaches the age of forty years. That’s the way the artist thinks, and he proves this thesis by personal example. Tistol works with ‘the information garbage’ — sensory, optic, visual stencils, templates, and media pictures. Endlessly duplicating these matrixes, the master carries them to the point of absurdity and makes them assume an unexpected meaning. At the same time, he managed to see truly Ukrainian ethnical elements even in such non-mental outlines as the Ararat Mount or an African palm tree.

For example, Tistol fashions a newly ‘iconic’ number out of a TV person or a story’s triteness using his apparent traditional pictorial manner. And a question involuntarily arises: “What Gods do we pray to? To those — ludicrous?” On the other hand, a sense message is only one of the painter’s canvases’ advantages. The avant-garde doesn’t have to be misshapen — Tistol makes it just beautiful. You can't deny that he’s got the philosophical component of his creativity.

Read in No 49 (58) of 5 December 2008