A3 print: 11.69 x 16.53"
Oleksiy Say (Kyiv), 1975-present DONE
From Every Teardrop a Bullet Will Be Cast
Digital prints, Spring 2022
Oleksiy Say graduated from the Kyiv Art and Industrial Technical School and the Ukrainian Academy of Art and Architecture. In the early 2000s, the artist founded his original method of “drawing pictures” in Microsoft Office Excel. This technique, where each fragment of an image is a mathematical formula, became the basis for a long-lasting Excel Art project. Subsequently, the artist used elements of office life in his installations. His works are in the collections of the auction house of Phillips de Pury, ArtCurial, and private collections in Western and Eastern Europe.
The posters on display in the exhibition were created by Say after the Russian invasion and quickly gained attention through social media. “Tolstoyevsky” is an artistic remark on the weaponization of culture by contemporary Russia, and the hypocrisy of Russian leaders espousing the values of “the great Russian culture” while devastating largely Russian speaking regions in the east and south of Ukraine.