There are painters whose work asks to be looked at, and there are painters whose work refuses to be ignored. Sasha Gladkiy belongs to the second group.

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His figures arrive on canvas already in costume pattern, saturated colour, a sense of stage. Yet for all their theatre, the paintings are precise. Drawing underwrites every gesture; composition holds even the most exuberant passage of paint in place.

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Gladkiy continues a strong tradition of contemporary Ukrainian figuration that prizes character, narrative and craft. At Art Kalyna we have followed his work closely for several years and consider it among the most distinctive in our programme.