Viktoriia Vansovych
- Michael Hanna
- Jul 1
- 2 min read
Viktoriia Vansovych is a mixed media painter and draftswoman who has been exhibiting in the United Kingdom since 2023. Her works are a cross between drawing and painting as they incorporate both charcoal powder and acrylic paint. Viktoriia describes her methods in detail as “My process begins with charcoal powder, and it takes time — days, sometimes longer. I always work in silence or under meditative, classical music. This stage is slow, careful, almost sacred. I use pencil to outline the emotion, then build up the contrast, light, and shadows with powder. It’s grounding. It’s quiet. It feels like breathing. But when the acrylic begins, I stand. I never sit for this part. I put on headphones and let the music flood through me — sometimes loud, fast, rhythmic. I move with the painting — dancing, turning, gesturing, throwing colour like emotion. It’s impulsive and expressive. I don’t try to control the result. I let the painting become what it needs to be”.
These imaginative hybrid drawing-paintings are extremely expressive but from a strategic perspective, rather than one of impulse or total improvisation. Viktoriia’s works contain immense detail in the draftsmanship of the form and subject, which usually reflect figures or animals. She strategically uses ‘focal points’ regarding the motif, such as the mane of a lion, the dress of a dancer, or the wine in a glass, and then proceeds to express these fixtures with explosions and splashes of color. Her figures are refined and composed while her expressive splashes offer a witty commentary on contemporary image-making.
By depicting both monochromatic as well as colorful elements, Viktoriia not only enhances the subject, but also reveals a distinct angular distortion, much like an optical lens, being accentuated through splashes of paint. These angular aesthetics reveal a deep inclination to express a sense of life, jubilee, and spirit into the subject. These ‘splashes’ and ‘explosions’ of paint are much like a dance, containing the rhythmic inspiration Viktoriia discovers from listening to music. Viktoriia can be described as an artist concerned with motion, dynamics and the essence of life. Her vortexes of color signify the life-force of her subjects being carefully directed towards a complex composition.
Rise of Motion (pictured above) represents the spiraling nature of ballet. The dancer’s dress contains a life of its own expressed through the jubilee contained through splashes of color. With precision, the rendering conveys the dancer in an angular posture, her gentle limbs extending out towards the surface. A deeply expressive piece which reveals how combining elements of monochromatic as well as full color spectrums can create exciting and unpredictable results.
Viktoriia Vansovych creates expressive works which are as poignant as they are refined. Through an optical lens of distortion and deep inclination towards angular aesthetics, she carves out compositions and figures which dance in the pale moonlight. Her works contain a narrative of form, not through metaphor, but rather through the combination of elements of both sophisticated renderings and dynamic as well as spirited vortexes of color.
