top of page

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This broad range of historical references not only foregrounds my own interest in appropriating past visual and literary styles but also invokes the schizophrenic and pathological impulses at work in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 spirit in which they lived.

All Videos
Watch Now

Award Exhibitions

2023

2021

2018

2017

2016

2016

2014

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

2017

2017

2017

2017

2016

2016

2016

2015

2015

2014

2013

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

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

2023

2019

2018

2016

2016

2014

Opening 20 April - Reflections, Exhibitions Gallery of Fine Art, Wellington NZ

On until 8th May - Cultural Narratives, NZ Parliament, Wellington NZ

Sea Conversations, WCAG, Auckland NZ

Art Map, WCAG, Auckland NZ

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

bottom of page