The Seeing Off

Matvii Weisberg (born 1958, Kyiv) is a Ukrainian painter, graphic artist, and master of book graphics.

He graduated from the Kyiv Taras Shevchenko Republican Art School and the Department of Book Graphics of the Ivan Fedorov Ukrainian Polygraphic Institute (1985). He has participated in more than 50 solo and group exhibitions, including the National Art Museum (1997, 2012), the Kyiv Museum of Russian Art (2003, 2005), the Cherkasy Art Museum (2014), the Berlin Wall Museum, the Ukrainian Institute of America (New York, 2014), and European House (London, 2014). Together with the critic Andrii Mokrousov, he has developed the concept of artistic rearguard, which he turns to in his work. Far from mimesis, however, he never was close to abstractionism. Not thinking of himself as a religious artist and a believer in the orthodox sense, he constantly turns to biblical themes (Days of Creation, 2000, Book of Job, Scenes from the Tanakh). In 2014, he turned to current issues in the context of the events of the Revolution of Dignity, creating a series called The Wall. During February-April 2022 he remained in Kyiv. A series of works entitled Road Diary is supposed to reflect on the staying in the city that was under attack.

Photo: Oleksandr Popenko © Mystetskyi Arsenal