Pixel art appeared in the 1970s and 1980s to create low-resolution video games and was successfully developing until the mid-90s. And with the advent of NFT, art gained popularity again, especially among young people. Now, it is a relevant and popular form of art all over the world. In the Ukrainian context, pixel art acquires a unique meaning. The pixel uniform of the Ukrainian military, traditional Ukrainian cross-stitching give a personal touch to pixel art as an art form in Ukraine. In early 2022, Volodymyr Lukan, a well-known Ivano-Frankivsk artist and art teacher (you can read more about him here), came across an idea to respond graphically and creatively to the challenges of modern digital technologies that are aggressively conquering our visual space. Queer code schemes are visually present everywhere and do not convey information for people, but are designed only for gadgets. The idea of QaRt is to make something for human visual perception. The graphics of simple block shapes calculated like cross-stitches, the limitation of the colours used make it a vivid representative of the popular Pixel art. Volodymyr Lukan, among other things, uses wartime plots in the project and initiated the sale of works to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Consequently, in addition to the exhibition, as part of the project, there will be a charity sale of Volodymyr Lukan’s works for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The works by Olha Babak, a young artist from Kharkiv, who has been living in Ivano-Frankivsk since the spring of 2022, are relevant in favour of the topic raised by Volodymyr Lukan. Olha’s new graphic works were already created in Ivano-Frankivsk. They also use the blocking technique of pixel art, which resembles elements of traditional cross-stitching, and explore the artist’s own identity through the acceptance of the country’s military status. The works by Oleksii Sai from the Excel-Art series, which have already been successfully demonstrated at exhibitions in the USA, Germany and other countries of the world, are a tandem and reinforcement of the project’s theme. Oleksii, an artist known both in Ukraine and far beyond its borders, also uses the principles of pixel art in his series. Using bright plots, lots of details, multi-colours methods, Oleksii tries to find an adequate visual language to describe modern processes and translates the digital language of the program into images understandable to people.

The exhibition was opened in the Asortymentna Kimnata gallery in early November.

Funds donated by Urban Space 100 covered the costs of arranging and mounting the exhibition.

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