Valeriy (Ven) GOLEIKO

Valeriy (Ven) GOLEIKO is an independent Ukrainian artist, a prominent representative of Kiev underground art of the late 70-ies of the 20th century. His name is connected with the birth and development of tralfrealism – a new trend (phenomenon) in modern Ukrainian art.

V. Goleiko was born in Kiev on August 11, 1965 – on the very day Jackson POLLOCK, one of the greatest American painters of the 20th century tragically died in the faraway America. It might very likely happen that the birth of one artist and the death of the other on the same day is not a mere coincidence. Many world philosophies and teachings (for example, the holy Hindu book Bhagavad-gita) assert that there are no random or unmotivated events in the world. It was the fortune’s will that one painter continued the line started by the other artist many years ago.

V. Goleiko transcends the mundane bustle, hustle and fuss and reaches a really cosmic orbit in his abstract paintings. As the artist states, tralfrealism is a colourful magic of the Universe, the unlimited reality of the fantasy.

V. Goleiko was born in the city founded more than 1500 years ago. It is the center of Slavonic statehood and a site rich in historic and cultural traditions. The great masters of avant-garde of the early 20th century Kazimir Malevich, David Burliuk, Anatoli Petritsky, Alexander Archipenko and other famous painters lived and worked in this city.

Valeriy GOLEIKO created his first pictures in the late 70-ies. The artist recollects that “he saw his first picture in a dream”… That first picture captured that which became the “main reality” for the painter for many years to come. The artist spent those years of his life among Soviet cultural underground movement. V. Goleiko calls that period of his creative activity «Underground Resistance». That was the time when he intuitively found the way to the new artistic approach that he named tralfrealism in 1982.

V. GOLEIKO’s first official exhibition took place in 1991, the very year when a “new” country, Ukraine, appeared on the world’s map.