A personal exhibition of the works of the Odesa artist, a member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine Hryhorii Vovk "Metamorphoses of graphic images" is presented as part of the art project "In the artist's workshop", which aims to popularize the work of Ukrainian artists and includes holding personal exhibitions and publishing catalogs with interviews-reflections artists about art and life, reproductions of works that vividly reflect their creative pursuits.
    The exposition of the exhibition consists of thirty-one graphic works from a series of author's gel pen drawings by Hryhorii Vovk on philosophical and theological topics, created in 2012-2021, which the artist donated to the funds of the O.O.Osmerkin Art Memorial Museum in 2021. The exhibition is complemented by photos of the artist from his personal archive - in the workshop, at the openings, on the open air in Odesa and Kropyvnytskyi, incl. during the National Art Festival "Kropyvnytskyi" (2018).
    Vovk Hryhorii Petrovych was born on July 13, 1954 in Poltava. Lives and works creatively in Odesa. Member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine (2017) and the Association of Christian Artists. He graduated from the Odesa State Art School named after M. B. Grekov, now Mitrofan Grekov Odesa Art College, faculty of painting, teachers Volodymyr Krystopenko and Serhiy Lukin (1979) and Christian Humanitarian and Economic University, Odesa, theology (2006).
    Master of theology, taught theology and design, for seven years was the dean of the graphic design faculty of the Christian Humanitarian and Economic University, Odesa
    Participant of all-Ukrainian and international art exhibitions and plein airs, winner of all-Ukrainian painting and graphics competitions. His creative output includes more than fifty personal exhibitions, which were exhibited in various cities of Ukraine.
    Works are stored in art museums of Odesa, other Ukrainian cities, including art museum and O.O.Osmerkin art-memorial museum in Kropyvnytskyi, private collections in Ukraine, in particular, of the famous Odesa collector and philanthropist Mykhailo Knobel, and abroad.
    According to the definition of the artist himself, he is a non-conformist, monumentalist, painter, graphic artist, poet, and the orientation of his art is spiritual intensivism and binary abstractionism, in Soviet times he took an active part in "apartment" exhibitions, was a member of the Creative Association of Artists (CAA Odesa).

    "It is with this definition - "spiritual intensivism" - that the non-conformist artist Hryhorii Vovk calls his style in art. Every creative person, of course, has his own view of life, of the time in which he had to live, and this individual vision is specially realized in the artistic heritage, subordinating to itself all the power and specificity of talent. An artist is always an innovator who understands the Universe as an existential space and makes us look with completely different eyes at things that seem to be simple decoration or even too mundane...
    The creative manner of the artist Hryhorii Vovk was formed under the influence of the Odesa art school. It was at this time, in the late 1970s, that the young artist was attracted by the environment of creative innovations and experimental techniques. He became friends with many representatives of the underground - O. Stovbur, V. Tsiupko, V. Khrushch, V. Mariniuk, M. Novikov, V. Naumets, the so-called "unformatted" creative personalities, and he himself developed in this direction. It was there, in the group of Odesa non-conformists, that a new worldview was formed, an unofficial attitude to artistic social realism and the search for a new expressive artistic language at that time. This formation of the fundamentally new took place through a complex and self-absorbed process of searching for one's creative "I".
    Hryhorii Petrovych works a lot and hard, resorts to experiments, and in some ways renews tradition. The artist tries to convey his feelings, perception and understanding through various forms of depiction: in those or other techniques and types of visual art, which are successfully complemented by graphics, installation of objects, small wooden colored sculpture. "I have developed my own style in different types of work. All my works have a common line," the artist confirms, "it happens that you can work in a realistic manner, or in a completely different impressionistic manner, and then you have the opportunity to work abstractly."
    The artistic world of the gifted countryman is thematically multifaceted and diverse, the range of content expression is also quite wide: these are realistic plots, and expressive portrait images, and geometric abstractions, and installations in which the social problems of our time are raised. Contemplating these creative phenomena, you understand that you need to have a very refined artistic taste and no less expressive emotional creative fullness to create a world of beauty in such a multi-layered embodiment - a combination of lines and symbols - giving each work the uniqueness of your own artistic style...
    Over the years of his artistic activity, he has formed an individual artistic language, his own style. We will not find a definition of artistic intensivism in any dictionary, but the master himself interprets it this way: "Spiritual intensivism is associated only with the positive. Firstly, it is connected with spiritual experiences and purity of soul, and secondly, it is an individual need to perceive life and transmit it through the emotional sphere, through color, different halftones, compassion in creativity. For example, I paint with oil paints, then I work with watercolors, then I do graphics, after that I write poems, then philosophical thoughts and I also make theological conclusions. And this pleiad of alternation of one, connected with another, is called 'spiritual intensivism'." Spiritual intensivism is an intense continuous creativity and at the same time art therapy. The artist is convinced that a soul must be born in a picture, which will then give immortality to the creator. His paintings are alive and different, built on dynamics, an endless process of movement. It is especially important for the artist to quickly capture the impression in form and color.
    With his own work, Hryhorii Vovk wants to make the viewer not just perceive familiar things and contemplate paintings, but to think actively, to empathize.
Hryhorii Vovk is a charismatic and harmonious personality, in addition to visual art, he conveys his thoughts and feelings in poetic works that have been published more than once in various collections...
    The greatest inspiration for the author is the Bible, he considers himself a religious artist, and in his work he constantly turns to the most important book of mankind. A whole series of paintings testify to the artist's reverent attitude to the images of Christianity. The prophets in Vovk's work are like the embodiment of pain and experience, they are born of fantasy as a response to the Word of God and a sign of wisdom that encourages reflection and compassion. The artist understands the creative process as spiritual growth, and art works that draw strength from the past transfer life-giving energy to the future...
    According to Hryhorii Petrovych, the creative process is an endless path of improvement: improving mastery, personal perception and understanding of the world around us, and, finally, one's own personality. His creative achievements help a person to discover methods of self-development and spiritual knowledge through active thinking.
    The philosophy of Hryhorii Vovk's work, which he generously shares with the viewer, is based on the close interaction of art and life, on the constant search for new forms of artistic thinking in order to convey his emotions, feelings, thoughts and a constant "striving for spiritual perfection, a combination of healthy folk morality with a high understanding of human destiny" to the contemporary.
    Hryhorii Vovk has found his own artistic language in graphics (his favorite technique here is drawing with a ballpoint pen). Graphics, as the author assures, complements his main interest in painting. The graphic sheets are striking in their laconic forms, rich shades of black and do not leave viewers indifferent. His cycle of graphic works "Biblical Motifs" can be called the quintessence of human feelings and spiritual aspirations."
    From the article by Valentyna Oriekhova "Spiritual Intensivism of Hryhorii Vovk". Scientific, journalistic, artistic and literary almanac of the Poltava National Pedagogical University named after Volodymyr Korolenko "Ridnyi Krai". 2012. No. 2 (27). pp. 156-163

    "Hryhorii Vovk is a hermit artist, self-sufficient, individual, sometimes prone to shocking, well-thought-out antics in the spirit of the futurists... He is a "Renaissance" artist in the sense that he manifests himself in different guises: as a painter, graphic artist, poet, designer, teacher, theologian, he turns to different techniques and genres. So in art he works at the intersection of these types of spiritual activity. As a theorist, he also tries to comprehend his own work, his place in the diverse contemporary art, defining it with the capacious term "spiritual intensivism".
    Vovk the artist attaches great importance to the word, which is evident from the titles of his works, in which the philosophical and theological mindset of the author is guessed: "Premonition", "Collision with thoughts", "Sigh", "The Thirtieth Silver Coin", "Obstacle", "The Approaching Light", "The Prophet's Experience", "The Prophet. A Torn Space", etc.
    The graphic series of the presented works covers, mainly, the last five years of the master's work, in which the biblical theme of prophets-seers, previously interpreted by him in painting, dominates. Generated by the all-encompassing author's thought and premonition, these characters seem to strive to go beyond the existing time and space. These are portrait metamorphoses, deformed faces that acquire an unreal state. At first glance, the piling up of forms may seem absurd, and the interpretation of some characters, if we abstract from the conventionality of art, sometimes balances on the verge of madness.
    In form-making, the artist's art is derived from the figurative. His portraits, as mentioned, are very deformed faces, in which the viewer is attached to reality only by the image of the eyes - distrustful-wary, self-absorbed, full of suffering or despair. This is the look of a person who seeks to escape from reality, for whom the latter is a certain physically and psychologically defined state. We have a vivid example of existential art..."
     From the article by Volodymyr Kudlach "From Reality to the Unknown". Newspaper "Chornomorski Novyny", No. 84 (21656), October 22, 2015, Odesa