Retrospective: The Trace

The exhibition presents a 1990s series of the artist’s paintings supplemented with a few works created in 2012-13. Malykh tends to display admiration of nature. His creative ideas are best described by the concepts of enigma and mystery. In this regard, the artist is somewhat similar to the famous Norwegian Edvard Munch. However, the semblance does not go beyond general terms, stopping far from the direct analogy.

Looking at Malykh’s latest display, one cannot help but see a typical detail. On many of his paintings all visitors notice eyes, with some gazing at them watchfully, others in a state of focused introspection. These eyes are often red-colored. How should one understand the allusions made by the artist, a tireless traveler and inventor? By the way, in classic psychology the desire for novelty is considered to be the defining trait of temperament.

Having traveled across half of the world, Malykh has not stopped his quest for new experiences. He has over 50 exhibitions in his portfolio. Once he opened them jointly with his daughter, while the current event saw him come to the visitors hand in hand with his beloved granddaughter.

Malykh was born in Berlin and studied in Moscow. His exhibition career began in 1979. Much of his work is associated with the Carpathians, the mountains he has a special passion for. All sorts of antiques from the region often inspired the artist to create original paintings. Living in the Carpathians and feeding on their energy have changed him. As he left behind Kyiv, Moscow and Berlin, tender and irresistibly strong sense of nature in all its primordial beauty replaced them. This powerful breath, preserved in his works, makes the strongest impression on the viewer. Dark blue and dark green colors create a basis of the artist’s worldview. Events of Malykh’s life include creating works depicting the Alps, trips to Guatemala and other exotic destinations, and exhibitions in Germany, Austria and many other countries.

One of Malykh’s artworks to be displayed at his latest exhibition is called The Molfar. It exemplifies the artist’s matchless ability to work with wood and find incredibly strange, almost mystical wooden antiques to be then transformed beyond recognition. The word molfar has a range of meanings. The Hutsuls call molfar (or molfarka in the case of females) a person endowed with various supernatural talents, who is a magician, seer, sorcerer. Malykh’s colleagues call him a molfar sometimes for his tireless pursuit of discoveries and inventions, as well as his generosity and willingness to give away in a most profligate manner the revelations he finds.

The exhibition will run through August 27.