Bio
Born in Eastern Europe - emigrated to New York City in 1990 & exhibited there before moving to Australia in 2000. Lived/worked in Australia for 8 years. New Zealand is my permanent home since 2009.
Emerging from behind the iron curtain, my art; paintings, and works on paper, strive to capture the underlying forces that dominate and determine the conditions of the human psyche.
In my latest works, I continue to expand upon strategies of collage, drawing, and painting that conjure earlier established themes and imagery mined from a myriad of sources including, movies, cult icons, literature, television, and my personal history.
This broad range of historical references not only foregrounds my own interest in appropriating past visual and literary styles but also invokes the schizophrenic and pathological impulses at work in my imagination.
As the use of colour has played an increasingly central role in my more recent works, so has the formal concern for surface, space, and technique, resulting in densely populated and fragmentary images that further articulate my refusal to offer a conventional narrative logic.
Often at once perversely funny and poetically contemplative, I think my power lies in an ability to occupy multiple positions at once, and ultimately to implicate text and image in a slippery production of meaning.
I consider myself a "collector of souls," seeking not only to capture the truth of the individual but also to reflect the era in which they lived.
Award Exhibitions
2023
2021
2018
2017
2016
2016
2014
On Now - Molly Morpeth Canaday Award for Painting & Drawing, Whakatane NZ
Walker & Hall Art Award , Auckland NZ
Walker & Hall Art Award , Michael Evans Award, Auckland NZ
Walker & Hall Art Award , Auckland NZ
Adam Portraiture Award, Wellington NZ
Walker & Hall Art Award , Auckland NZ
NZ Painting & Printmaking Award, Hamilton NZ
Exhibitions
Solo
2023
2021
2020
2019
2019
2018
2018
2018
November - TBA, Exhibitions Gallery, Wellington NZ
In Person, OBV Gallery, Matakana, Auckland, NZ
Public & Private, Exhibitions Gallery, Auckland NZ
Secret Messages, Artbay Gallery, Queenstown NZ
A Cake Walk the Plank, Exhibitions Gallery, Auckland NZ
Monkey Business Card, Exhibitions Gallery, Wellington NZ
Mother Tongue Twists, Artbay Gallery, Queenstown NZ
Inhabited, Exhibitions Gallery, Auckland NZ
2017
2017
2017
2017
2016
2016
2016
2015
2015
2014
2013
Painted Cities, Artbay Gallery, Queenstown NZ
Shadows and Fog, Exhibitions Gallery, Wellington, NZ
Boyhood Dreams, Kina Design Space, New Plymouth, NZ
The Farce, Waiheke Community Art Gallery, Auckland, NZ
Eksperimendid, Remuera Gallery, Auckland, NZ
Atelophobia, Printing Museum, Tartu, ESTONIA
Grass Grows On My Tongue, Kina Design Space, New Plymouth
Town & Country, ArtBay Gallery, Queenstown, NZ
Bird Brain, Kina NZ Design Space, New Plymouth, NZ
Ars Longa Vita Brevis, ArtBay Gallery, Queenstown, NZ
Awkward Spaces, TOI Gallery, NZ
Group
2023
2019
2018
On Now - Cultural Narratives, NZ Parliament, Wellington NZ
Sea Conversations, WCAG, Auckland NZ
Art Map, WCAG, Auckland NZ
2016
2016
2014
NZ Outsider Art Fair, Auckland NZ
Summer, WOW Museum, Nelson NZ
Bibliography
In Person - The Art of Ilya Volykhine, Feb 2021
Tragedy a turning point..., Rose Davis, Stuff NZ, Mar 2018
Ilya Volykhine - Arte Novus, 2017
Art is forever, life is short, Bethany Rogers, Queenstown.com 2016
Plastica: Ilya Volykhine, ENEUR, Issue 37, 2015
Ilya Volykhine Paintings Are Darkly Comic - Mutant Space, 2014
Experiments in Imagery, Gulf News, NZ, 2013
Russian Artist Goes to Town, Otago Daily Times, NZ, 2013
Upcoming, Art News, NZ, March 2012
Matthew Muir, Gulf News, NZ, November 2011
Lyndal Jeffries, Gulf News, NZ, September 2011
In-Depth Arts Reviews, Absolutearts.com, 2008
Jane Hutchinson, Sunday Telegraph, AUS, 2007
Andrew Frost, The Art Life, AUS, 2006
Shelley McSpedden, Sydney Morning Herald Critic’s Picks, AUS, 2004
Robert Nelson, The Age, AUS, 2003
Fred Fair, Contemporary Arts Society News, AUS, 2003
Nadine Imperati, CraftArts Issue No. 52, AUS, 2001