Strelnikov, Volodymyr

Strelnikov, Volodymyr [Стрельніков, Володимир; Strel’nikov], b 25 October 1939 in Odesa. Painter. He studied briefly at the Odesa Art School but was mostly self-taught. He worked as a muralist (see Mural) in Odesa and participated in and organized some of the exhibitions of unofficial or nonconformist art there. Strelnikov has experimented with reduced shapes and the interrelationship between figures and architecture. In his later pictures architecture and figures have been reduced to simplified patterns within the larger contained form, so that a tension is sustained between the detailed, intricate shapes and the surrounding smooth areas of warm color (eg, Autumnal [1977]). Together with Feodosii Humeniuk, Volodymyr Makarenko, and Vitalii Sazonov, Strelnikov participated in the 1975 and 1976 Moscow exhibitions of Ukrainian nonconformist artists and was consequently harassed by the Soviet authorities. In 1978 he was allowed to emigrate to Austria, and in 1979 he settled in Munich. Since that time he has exhibited in Western Europe, the United States, and Canada. He abandoned figuration in the late 1980s in favor of nonrepresentational compositions based on the interrelationship between form and color.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]