Oleg Dergachov sculpts, paints, draws, etches, designs sets, makes books…read on!

ARTIST STATEMENT

There are at least two reasons for me to be an artist: Firstly, I can’t live without creating my art. As far as I remember, I’ve been making drawings, sculptures and cartoons. The second reason is the feeling of freedom. My art makes me happy and free. I feel independent when creating.

When I was a little boy, I often wondered how other people could exist without drawing or sculpturing. It seemed so easy for me and so delightful to touch plasticine, paper or pencil…

Cartoons made me free in secondary school, during military service and in the academy. I am probably repeating my grandfather's passion, who spent his life making watercolors and died peacefully with a pencil in his hand. Happy death, if death could be like this…! He was refused admission as a student because he had been serving in the Russian tsarist army in Siberia when the revolution started. When I was a little boy I already understood that our world is imperfect. We live in a great, amazing but crazy and absurd world. My aim is to show this paradox and absurdity. I love the art of Rene Magritte, Dali, Joan Miro and Picasso as well as Ionescu’s plays, Daniil Kharms' and Josef Brodsky’s poetry. I admire the art of the Old Masters. We can find everything in their paintings – surrealism, fantasy, philosophy and indeed, beauty.

I am not only a cartoonist. Cartoons are but one side of my artist’s face. My mission is to bring as many positive emotions to my visitors. I am sure that it’s impossible to understand modern art without a sense of humor.

I have spent twenty years of my life in Russia, where I was born and the next twenty years in Ukraine, were I became well known as a European artist. Now the third part of my life in Canada has started.

In cartoons I value symbolism and imagination. Cartoons for me are real art. By the way, I don’t like the word « cartoon ». I prefer « humor in art » or witty drawings with meaning. I respect all graphic techniques – etching, silk-screens, lithography. I love all materials. It is just a question of figuring out which material suits my idea and how to use it for my art.

Travelling is a very important part of my life. The ancient Chinese used to say: « The more you travel, the longer life your life will be». That’s the truth, just think of Jacques Ives Cousteau. Humor and a positive attitude heal me mentally and even physically, they help me to survive in our cruel world. I’ve been fighting for my spiritual territory, for my « mental space » for many years. I guess I’ve won. Let’s be frank and witty and we’ll live a long and happy life!

To view Oleg Dergachov's body of work please go to: www.dergachov.lviv.ua

To read a commentary on Oleg Dergachov's work please go to the bottom of the artwork.

All images © Oleg Dergachov

A commentary on Oleg Dergachov's work.

Artistic Experiment dominates his life. Oleg has tried almost all genres and techniques of fine arts including book illustration, etching and sculpture. He continues his search for new ways to realize his numerous ideas. The arsenal of his means of expression is immense. Having participated in more than 300 international contests in graphic art, artist's books, cartoon, painting and sculpture, during the last decade of the 20-th century he won over 70 prestigious international prizes in 25 countries. It gave him opportunity to travel extensively which he enjoys a lot and which became his lifestyle. His favorite hero is a traveller-pilgrim. Oleg's books, sculptures and drawings travel with him. Some of them were purchased by thirty museums and national collections such as the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, Victoria & Albert Museum in London, Mediotheek of the Bobur (Centre Nationale D'art et de Culture Georges Pompidou) in Paris and others.

His creations emanate entirely positive energy and are saturated with good humour. The essence of his art is ironical and, sometimes, full of satirical wittiness or sad lyricism.

I have known Oleg Deragchov since his childhood, when his burning desire to become an artist became evident to all. But believe me, even when a child he was already an artist with a God-given talent. Oleg was born and grew up in Rostov-on-Don in South Russia. In both his look and his character one can easily spot the trait which is so typical of southern people, such as generosity and open-heartedness which is reflected in an extravert nature of his art. He created his own style in cartoon, etching and hand made unique artist's books which is recognized by critics all over the world. Sculpture lived in his soul from the very childhood and he found his own way here as well and just astonished us with his new bronzes. It's a puzzle: having reached genuine recognition in international graphic community, he suddenly switched over to sculpture, which illustrates the thesis about the universal role of Synthesis and Synergism: the mind of a true Cartoonist generates extraordinary ideas. Then his idea turns into a poster, advertisement, painting and seldom (because of a higher material costs) it goes to the final stage - architecture or sculpture. Idea and Word give Oleg impulse to create his volumetric bronze images. His thought after being drawn is directly transformed into a 3D object. And he does it brilliantly! He invents technically challenging methods and approaches.

A few years ago Oleg Dergachov made a video called "Mini-monuments". That in itself in cause for pause-you might wonder, "What's a cartoonist doing making a video?" .But that is Oleg's nature; he tries his hand at every artistic form and medium - cartoons, illustrations, design, book making, printing, animation and sculpture. In his video, Oleg denounces public monuments, paid for with large sums of the people's money, usually dedicated to military officers, politicians and other unsavory types, and, after their dedicatory ceremonies, noticed by few and used mainly by pigeons as their public toilets. Oleg proposes instead small monuments, sculptures in private homes that daily evoke a smile or otherwise bring pleasure. Being more than a man with ingenious ideas, Oleg set about providing such monuments, drawing on his sculpting skills. The result is a body of bronzes that cleverly combine sophisticated humor with the grotesque, the surrealistic, and the witty. Some are not very intricate - a mobile made of a hammer, the claws of which form human legs; others are imaginative renderings of myths or fables - a hand, two fingers thrust forming the legs of a horse, on which sits George with a spear lance that he is using to slay the dragon. As with all of his art, Oleg Dergachov shows us through his bronzes that he has a fantastic creative capacity, a mastery of the use of materials, techniques and form, and an uncanny ability to involve and delight us as a viewers.

Oleg is a multi-talented and versatile artist working successfully with a variety of materials and techniques. He also succeeds in experimental graphics and book design projects.

He achieves extraordinary effects with images in cartoons, watercolors, drawings, etchings and bronze plastics.

He enjoys playing with his smart and tasteful toys. His studio sometimes looks like a kitchen where plaster, clay and silicon surround his drawings and etchings. As I mentioned, literature is very important for him. He creates a short story about his sculpture before it becomes a bronze object. We can easily see an incurable cartoonist here whose eyes keep spotting paradoxes of life. He is a free-stylist in treating volume and form, turning one object into another, combining opposites. It is just impossible for Oleg to live outside of Art: every thing he works on becomes an artwork - a heroic candlestick or a funny hammer.

Tatyana Nekludova,

Ph D, Dean of Art & Design Department of Academy of Architecture