The works of Oleg Tistol have been shaping the main trends of Ukrainian art since the notorious «perestroika» period. They have become an essential part of the so-called «new wave», and help delineate its theoretical boundaries. His early works were exhibited for the first time in the late 1980s. Since then, Ukrainian art has survived several important changes of expression, style, strategies and direction of creative activity. But his paintings, large installation projects, photographs, sculpture, and art objects, in one medium or another, have been constantly in the center of the ongoing evolution and become milestones of Ukrainian art. Clearly, the works of the artist have been on constant display at large international forums of contemporary art for decades: the Venice Biennale 2001, 22 International Biennale 1994 in Sao-Paolo, or Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art in 2007, and ended up in collections of large museums of Russia, Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Great Britain… Although these days Oleg’s art has a persistent theme, his new works discover new possibilities in the seemingly fixed personal program, and help seeing its content from an unexpected point of view.

The painter has been depicting numerous «palm trees» since 2007. They have gradually become the «UBK» (South Crimea Coast) Project. What a nice ’surprise’! The large canvases became part of the «Reflection» event at Pinchuk Art Center in 2007 — 2008, the color photographic prints on paper made up the exhibition Great Job at Kiev «I-Gallery» of P.Gudimov. «The palm trees mean the world to me — as well as to other people — they are a symbol of heaven. And, traditionally, our people have a pine tree instead. So I have always considered it to be a „national tree“. And it is summer outside, the Yalta sea front, the carefree feeling of a holiday…». However, if Oleg Tistol’s «Palm Trees» strike with their emphasized simplicity and spontaneity at the plot level, their complex imagery carries an indirect artistic content that has established a model trend in art. Moreover, unlike his previous works, the irony passes into soft humor, grotesque into lyrics, and vision of the painted subject assumes a refined esthetics. However, even in those works, the artist remains true to the position he formulated a decade ago as an «expression of stereotypical beauty». Although his works that date back many years were reproduced in numerous albums and catalogues, it is important to recollect the main projects of the artist, to make sure the UBK holds a distinct position among them.

… Tistol’s UBK Project might achieve the «new simplicity» he dreamed about in the 1980s. There is no complex concept or intricate historical and cultural reflections, or any collision of content, images and spaces that made his previous art special. The painter ends up with a certain poetization of the routine when the habitual stereotypes turn into festive exotics. And, the exotic is reminiscent of vacations — a change in the flow of life without any sudden turns of destiny or unexpected discoveries, and promises a fun holiday among the good old landscapes. It is no accident that his projects include a series printed on the school notebook pages. He still keeps painting the same thing all over again, he does not come any closer to reality, he creates an illusion, a world of dreams and memories. His photoprints and painting over photographs — the paintings where the photograph is the material taking part of their space. The author dwells in the realm of the skillful and creative vision with his artful magic of the surprising, invented, incomprehensible. Returning to a simple subject, the artist shows the painting itself — with collision of spaces, layers of time track, inconsistencies of color and shapes. The banal may easily become mysterious in the era when exotic is banalized. So, while the art exists, it maintains its main quality — to create illusions that are unlike any other experience.

Born in 1960 in Vradievka village, Nikolayev region.

1974 — 1978 Republican Shevchenko Art School, Kiev

1979-1984 Lviv State Academy of Art

Since 1987 — Participated in several art exhibitions nationally and globally, including: Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, 2007; Pinchuk Art Center, 2007; Art Strelka Projects, 2006; Passage de Retz, Paris, 1999; Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art, , 2001; International Biennale «Interphoto», Moscow, 1996; 22 International Biennale, Sao Paolo, Brazil, 1994; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1991; Peterborough Museum, Peterborough, Great Britain, 1991. He uses various genres of fine arts: painting, graphics, photography, sculpture, and installation.

The painter’s works are held in collections in Stedelijk Museum in the Netherlands, in Christoph Merian Shtiftung Foundation in Switzerland, Moscow House of Photography in Russia, Center of Contemporary Art in Ukraine and other museums and private collections in Ukraine and globally.