Eugene Shadko, Untitled, 2024

oil, canvas, 40 х 30 cm

This portrait study intentionally lacks distinctive facial features. In a series of portraits on a black background, I use images of unknown people. Ears, eyes, nose, mouth and done. Endless room for improvisation. In the portrait presented at auction, the boy has no distinguishing features, except for a white collar. The series of portraits depict faces on the borderline between abstraction and realism. With me, the portrait becomes a landscape of emotions.
The white collar is a gorguer (jabot) - fashionable among the Spanish Maho group of slaughterers, who often shocked the public with their appearance. Eugene Shadko was born in 1987 in Barisov, Belarus. In 2003 he began studying at the Glebov Art School in Minsk. After graduation he moved to Poland, where he studied at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun. The artist works and lives in Minsk. For a long time, he has been bringing his work closer to experimenting with the fundamental knowledge of man. Each of his compositions begins with reflective images found on various platforms, social networks, randomly noticed images on the Internet, which he explores and transforms into his narrative. Each painting is a work composed of many individual thoughts and images. Faces and body parts are usually the priority in the paintings. The series of portraits depict figures, personalities frozen in time. Anatomical parts of the body are often displaced, altered, fragmented; the man in the painting exists in the midst of different situations and times simultaneously. In this way, the characters are pulled out of their personal histories. The documentary accuracy of photography is abolished. The layering of color masses and textures, brings out the tactile nature of painting and leaves only pose, gaze and perspective - something very unstable, almost accidental, but most essential and intimate. Objects appearing in his paintings shimmer with bright colors and sometimes imperceptibly protrude from the background, giving the viewer a broader understanding of the idea of the painting and the uniqueness of the depicted event.

solo exhibitions:
2021 - Black Mirror. De Twee Pauwen, The Hague, The Netherlands
2020 - Dawn. AV Gallery, Minsk, Belarus
2019 - Persone e identita, Spazi Arte gallery, Piacenza, Italy
2015 - e s c a p e. Y contemporary art gallery, Minsk, Belarus
2013 - in dazzling white corridors. Y contemporary art gallery, Minsk, Belarus
2011 - painting. Mount Blanc Gallery, Torun, Poland
group exhibitions:
2021 - ArtVilnius Art Fair, Vilnius, Lithuania.
2021 - Ošemetná záležitosť, Levoča, Slovakia
2020 - Non Place, Palace of Arts, Minsk, Belarus
2019 - Secret Art Show, 31 Ravenscroft rd, London, England
2019 - Art Padova Fair, Residential Art Gallery London stand 101, Padova, Italy.
2019 - Salon d'Automne, Palace of Arts, Minsk, Belarus
2019 - Between Flesh and Bone, Petrompei Mavromihali 3A, Larnaca, Cyprus
2019, 2018 - Art Market Budapest, Budapest, Hungary
2016 - Anatomy, CCA, Minsk, Belarus
2016 - Borders. duszniki-zdrój. Poland
2015 - Measurements of emptiness. Y contemporary art gallery, Minsk, Belarus
2014 - Memory of their shadows. Palace of Arts, Minsk, Belarus
2014 - Alphabet. Vashenko Gallery, Gomel, Belarus.
2013 - Becoming an artist. Y contemporary art gallery, Minsk, Belarus
2013 - structuring. Y contemporary art gallery, Minsk, Belarus
2013 - scrap paper. Museum of Contemporary Fine Arts, Minsk, Belarus