Premio Combat Prize

Sergei Sviatchenko was born in Ukraine and lives and works in Viborg, Denmark since 1990. He graduated from the Kharkov Academy of Art and Architecture in 1975 and studied PhD at the Kiev School of Architecture. A provocateur in the world of contemporary art , Sviatchenko’s collages and paintings have been exhibited in Denmark, Germany, Italy, France, England, Canada, and the USA and featured in celebrated magazines such as Dazed & Confused, AnOther, Kilimanjaro, Varoom, Elephant, This is a magazine, Rojo, Viewpoint and Blueprint.
Drawing on and harnessing all of the cultural tides he has experienced in 40 years of image-making, Sviatchenko’s oeuvre spans the known and the unimaginable. It cuts through the boundaries of traditional and contemporary visuals to merge pop culture with politics, personal memory with collective histories, and architecture and science with the logic of dreams.
Sviatchenko has worked with a broad range of subjects and media. He experiments, challenges, and abolishes where other artists move within established comfort zones. From his early work as a conceptual artist and collage maker, he moved on to abstract painting and has done commissions and large-scale murals for international brands and institutions. More recently, Sviatchenko has created the fashion-forward photography project Close Up and Private, which looks to capture the spirit of modern style, as seen through the subtle shades of the individual. Through these details a complex discourse between clothing, fashion and image takes form, offering new perspectives on contemporary fashion and identity.
With a portfolio and methodology in perpetual evolution, his influences include modernism, surrealism, and rock music.
In our world of sensory overload, Sergei Sviatchenko stands out as an artist with unique vision. This vision is also documented in Gestalten’s release Everything Goes Right & Left If You Want It, the first comprehensive collection of Sviatchenko’s collage and painting.