Didier Devillez & Stephan Marquardt
ont le plaisir de vous convier au vernissage de l’exposition commune
have the pleasure to invite you to the opening of a joint exhibition of works

Sergei Sviatchenko (b.1952) is a Ukrainian artist living and working in Viborg, Denmark, since 1990.
Described as one of today's most influential collage artists, Sergei Sviatchenko's oeuvre cuts through the boundaries of traditional and contemporary visuals, merging pop culture with politics, history, science and architecture.
The exhibition WE presents paintings from the series "Modest desires beyond the mountains of joy and warmth" (2019) and photomontages of the former Citroën garage in Brussels. It also includes photomontages created from his studies of the natural environments of the Danish woodlands (Nature Matter, 2017). These reflective works redraws the woodlands, pairing different elements of nature and concrete forms to create a portrait of the fragile and elegant nature. This lenticular vision is echoed in Sviatchenko’s paintings, such as Dialogue of Days Silence (2016), which present a rich dream of dark greens, deep browns and red hues, extracted from the forests and lakes recalled from his youth. To be noted also his famous collage series LESS, of which some works are also shown.
Growing up in Ukraine in the 1960s, Sviatchenko witnessed first hand the revolutionary shifts in global society and contemporary culture, from Khrushchev’s tomb to Gorbachev’s new openness and the fall of the Wall, and the revolutionary extension of the West, bringing with it a new flourish of pop culture and artistic expression. In his work we see the reflections of decades of artistic exploration. From Soviet avant-garde art, architecture and Constructivism, to World War I Surrealism, and the 1960's American Expressionists and pop music, and the films of director Andrei Tarkovsky.
A provocateur in the world of contemporary art, Sviatchenko’s collages and paintings have been exhibited in Denmark, Germany, Italy, France, England, Canada, and the USA. Sviatchenko has completed major commissions for companies in the Denmark such as Jyske Bank, Silkeborg, Nokia House and Aalborg University in Copenhagen, Poul Due Jensen Academy, Grundfos, and Magasin du Nord, Copenhagen. His work has been published in several monographs including Sergei Sviatchenko: Collages by Rick Poynor (Schlebrügge, Vienna, 2014), and Sergei Sviatchenko: I AM COLLAGE, (Lindhardt & Ringhof, Denmark 2018).
Faye Dowling,
Curator, Editor and Consultant, London.