The Study of Form | Oleksandr Geffen

Fine art gallery Triptych: Global Arts Workshop presents ‘The Study of Form’, the debut exhibition project of young contemporary artist Oleksandr Geffen. This series of paintings tackles the mysteries of the Universe through an aesthetic enquiry into the sacred geometry that underpins Creation. Travelling through the pages of the history of civilizations, Geffen engages the viewer in conversation with his imaginative, playful ‘abstract thoughtforms’. Allusion to biblical scenes, Hindu philosophy, art history anecdotes and famous artworks abound. In the artist’s own words:

“The world around us is exceptionally harmonious. Imagine a person whose hand is bigger than their head, or whose nose is situated lower down by 4 cm from the average. Such a person would seem incongruous, although these are but minor deviations from the proportions that seem normal to us. The formula of ‘normality’ is applicable to the world that surrounds us. Simple forms can be discerned behind the multitude of complex shapes, and it is this mathematical sequence that underpins the formulae of beauty, such as the ones proposed by Vitruvius (whose Vitruvian Man was made famous by Leonardo da Vinci’s illustration of the same name) and Le Corbusier’s Modulor. What is the essence of this beauty? What does it communicate to us?” 

Despite an eclectic set of influences (Francis Bacon, Leonardo da Vinci, Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Mark Rothko, Egon Schiele et al.) and a range of styles (Purism, Geometric Abstraction, Colour Field painting, Orientalism), Geffen speaks with a plastic language of his own. This is not a monologue, but a multi-level dialogue: with his viewers, with his predecessors, with the Universe. The forms are calculated through the ‘Modulor’ system, forming coherent patterns, a kind of alphabet, while the paraffin lines allude to the ‘thread of history’ composed of grand and trivial events, not unlike the Ajivika belief that “life and the universe is like a ball of thread that, when thrown, will unwind to its full length”.

About the Artist

Oleksandr Oleksandrovych Geffen (Kovaliov) was born on the 28th December 1989, and so remembers the world before the advent of the internet. He graduated with a degree in Computer Science from the International Solomon University in Kyiv, but his desire to engage with the aesthetic dimension of the vital reality of the world around him led him to study a range of other disciplines. This included Jewish History at the Open University of Israel, Fine Art at the Kyiv State Mykhailo Boychuk Decorative Arts and Design Institute, Film Production at the Kyiv National Karpenko-Kary Theatre, Cinema, and Television University, and Theory & History of Art at the Kyiv National Academy of Fine Art and Architecture. 

Geffen’s creative potential is refracted through a prism of research work in the following areas: the study of form, the study of colour, and figurative art. In the artist’s arsenal we find acrylic, paraffin, sheet metals, gold leaf, resin, fineliners, acrylic marker pens, and thread. ‘The Study of Form’ is the young artist’s first solo exhibition.