Ilya Volykhine

Born in Eastern Europe - emigrated to New York City in 1990 & exhibited there before moving to Australia in 2000. Lived/worked in Australia for 8 years.  New Zealand is my permanent home since 2009. Emerging from behind the iron curtain, my art; paintings, and works on paper, strive to capture the underlying forces that dominate and determine the conditions of the human psyche. In my latest works, I continue to expand upon strategies of collage, drawing, and painting that conjure earlier established themes and imagery mined from a myriad of sources including, movies, cult icons, literature, television, and my personal history. This broad range of historical references not only foregrounds my own interest in appropriating past visual and literary styles but also invokes the schizophrenic and pathological impulses at work in my imagination.