VERONIKA HAPCHENKO
Retina
Solo exhibition of the artist's work
Exhibition opening:
Monday, 2 June 2025
6 - 8 PM
IMPORT EXPORT is excited to present “Retina” - the new solo exhibition of work by Kyiv-born, Krakow-based artist Veronika Hapchenko.
A graduate of the MFA in Painting from the Krakow Academy of Fine Art (2021), Hapchenko first studied stage design and puppetry at the National University of Cinema and Television in Kyiv. It is the third exhibition of the artist as part of the gallery programme, after “False Door” in 2022 and “Interloper” in 2023 – which won the main acquisition award of Warsaw Gallery Weekend, sponsored by ING Polish Art Foundation.
Embracing both painting and object making as part of her practice, Hapchenko works in devised, research-based series. Looking to history archives, philosophical theses as well as oral narration as sources of inspiration, she challenges the narratives and cultural tropes of the former USSR – often deconstructing them and repositioning to a Ukrainian perspective.
In her work, she probes official historiography as much as the obscure legends related to lives of revolutionary and political figures to illustrate how power dynamics and occult shape our collective consciousness. Past series include paintings inspired by esotericism, early sci-fi cinema, Ukrainian Modernist mosaics (specifically of Alla Horska and Ivan Lytovchenko) as well as Soviet geological and social engineering projects (Northern River Reversal Project) and ethnic persecutions (Cheche Vista Forced Displacement Program).
In Hapchenko’s paintings, human bodies and skeletons blend with diagrams, geometrical and celestial shapes – creating compositions that resemble theatre curtains or immersive environments. This filmic effect is amplified by the use of airbrush technique – alluded to by the artist as ‘dust on dust’ – that renders both drawing and brush stroke as inadequate and instead delivers a smooth surface finish with blurry outlines and translucent colour.
‘Retina’ comprises signature for the artist acrylic and ink airbrush paintings and a new series of watercolours mounted on wood, which delve deep into the formal, philosophical and psychological aspects of deformation of the (social) body and the state of (political) awakening - illustrated by Hapchenko through allusions, anecdotes, fantastic shapes and ethereal figures.
On view until 11 July at IMPORT EXPORT, Warsaw.
