Vashkevich Ruslan / CRIME IN PARADISE
05.10-10.11.2006

CRIME IN PARADISE: the first personal exhibition in Ukraine of one of the best modern painters

In October, 15 (2006), 19:00 – the gallery “Collection” in partnership with the international automobile holding company Atlant–M, opened in Ukraine the first personal exhibition of a well-known Byelorussian painter, Ruslan Vashkevich. Last year, the Ukrainian house had the opportunity to watch several works of Vashkevich in the ironic and humorous performance “Balota Empire” held at the Soros centre of Modern Art.

Larica Mikhnevich, exhibition director of the Modern Art Museum in Minsk, said about Ruslan Vashkevich: “He is a striking, independent and a little bit impudent painter from Minsk, who is building a brilliant art career. The Kiev exhibition of Vashkevich represents “the works of different years”, but it has not kept the exhibition from being very integrated. Obviously, everything has been compared by that intricate image-bearing game, which is played by the painter in art.

Ruslan Vashkevich says about his art: “On exhibitions I use a picture as a traditional form to present non-traditional ideas. To call yourself a painter, you can’t suggest having a holiday or sick-leave. Art can not be comfortably placed somewhere on the edge of your conscience, it absorbs you entirely”.

Darina Zholdak, director of the gallery “Collection” says: “We have chosen exactly Ruslan Vashkevich for the second exhibition in our gallery, because we are sure in his success among Ukrainian connoisseurs of art. Ruslan is well-known in Europe, and his works are kept in many private collections, they have been successfully sold in the most prestigious auction house, Sotheby’s, and were presented in the structure of the official program of Venetian Biennale – 51. I am sure that the energy which overflows from his canvases - vivid emotions, denudation of feelings and depth in Ruslan’s works - should surely attract Ukrainians”.

Catalog is available.