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Painting

Oleg Tistol

Yalta 15

Year
2015
Medium
Acrylic on paper
Dimensions
150 × 120 cm
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About the Artwork

Translation awaiting review

The palm tree is one of the most distinctive and recognisable motifs in the work of Ukrainian artist Oleg Tistol. In his works it represents paradise, freedom, carefreeness and personal memories of the southern coast of Crimea.

The painting Yalta depicts stylised palm trees in an expressive combination of vivid pink, dark purple and black tones. Its decorative floral frame refers to folk ornamentation, creating a contrast between traditional aesthetics and contemporary painterly expression.

Tistol understands the palm tree as a symbol of an imaginary Ukrainian paradise. A motif that originally evoked memories of summer, relaxation and joy acquired a new meaning after 2014. It also became an image of a lost home, nostalgia and the desire to return.

The vivid colours and seemingly simple composition combine personal memory with collective experience. The palm tree is no longer merely an exotic tree, but a symbol of a place whose cultural and emotional meaning exceeds the landscape itself.

Yalta thus gives visual expression to the relationship between memory, identity and the idea of a paradise which may be geographically distant, but remains alive in the human imagination.

About the Artist

Oleg Tistol

Oleg Tistol

Date of Birth: 1969

Place of residence: Kyiv

Tistol Oleg (August 25, 1960, Vradiyivka, Mykolaiv Region, Ukraine, USSR) is a Ukrainian artist, a representative of the Ukrainian neo-baroque, and one of the leaders of the New Ukrainian Wave.

Oleg Tistol was born in the village of Vradiyivka, Mykolayiv region, in the family of Mykhailo Fedorovych Tistol, an agronomist. In 1970 his mother Bolgarina (Tistol) Valentina Sergeevna received a position of the chief of regional management of culture, and Oleg with parents moved to Nikolaev.

He began his art education in 1972 at a children’s art school. In 1974 he entered the Republican Art High School. Taras Shevchenko to the department of painting and moved to Kyiv. From 1978 to 1979 he worked as a font artist at the Mykolayiv Art Foundation. From 1979 to 1984 he studied at the Lviv State Institute of Decorative and Applied Arts. From 1984 to 1986 he served in the military unit Makarov-1, where he met Konstantin (Winnie) Reunov.

In 1988 he married the artist Marina Skugareva.

At the 1st Soviet-American exhibition “Soviart” Oleg Tistol met the artist Dmitry Kantorov, who invited him to the Moscow squat “Furmanny Lane”. At the end of 1988, Tistol and Reunov, in collaboration with curator Olga Sviblova, began presenting their work in Glasgow, Reykjavik, Helsinki, and more. From 2002 to 2009 he worked with curator Olga Lopukhova, a joint project – “Hudfond” (2009).

Since 1993 he has lived and worked in Kyiv.

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