FIRTSAK BORYS

Works in the genres of painting, graphic design, scenography, architectural design and as a cinema artist. Since 2006 – a member of the All-Ukrainian Creative Union “BZH-Art”. Since 2014 – participant of the Kyiv Union of Artists Association “Blue October”.

The artist was born on 26 April 1962, in Bilky village, Irshava district, Transcarpathia. The first mentor on his path of obtaining vocational education was his father Vasyl Firtsak, who noticed his son's artistic abilities early and began to develop them, encouraging to attend drawing classes, meet with his friends – artists of the Transcarpathian school of painting. One of them – a student of Yosyp Bokshai, an outstanding pedagogue and theorist of artistic studies Zoltan Bakoniia, the founder of the only summer camp in the USSR for gifted children “Young Artist” – confirmed Borys in his desire to be engaged in fine arts. The next important stage in the formation of Borys as an artistic person were the years of study at the Republican Art School named after T. Shevchenko (1976, 1979, Kyiv). In the future – the Ukrainian Polygraphic Institute named after Ivan Fedorov, Department of polygraph design and book graphics (1979 – 1984, Lviv).

Borys Firtsak is one of those few artists who, in each of their works, set themselves a creative task and try to solve it with the utmost expressiveness, presenting the figurative quintessence of their idea. And if we take into account the fact that the artist works (in his definition) in the conditional and realistic manner, then the plastic and semantic motives of his paintings are perceived as a true metaphor, as an impulse to plunge into the essence of the content. Curator of art projects Maia Chumak (Kyiv) wrote about the artist: “His canvases are not burdened with everyday details; they are almost devoid of the background reality. And at the same time, they are intensely emotional, vibrating, expressive and sensual. Obviously, in his search for all the components of the art form, he chooses the colour as the dominant: constructs with it the space in landscapes, characters in portraits, outlines the non-utilitarian nature of objects in still lifes, reveals the plastics of the naked nature.”

This author's painting technique is embodied in the stage design of Borys Firstsak. But it is not mechanical – it is mastering of the colour of the three-dimensional stage space in the context of the expressive means of the theatre – action.

This tendency can be observed in the artist's films – "Aurora, or the Dream of a Sleeping Beauty" (2006, directed by O. Bairak) and “Ivan Syla” about the life of the world-famous Transcarpathian wrestler, by the way, Borys's relative Ivan Firtsak-Kroton (2013, director V. Andriienko). In addition, with help of the cinema, the artist revealed another peculiarity of his painting style – extreme attention to details and their scrupulous selection. The selection which allows the artist to build the work of the genre of visual and semantic nuances and cultural associations. And this, together with the expressive means inherent only to him, makes him recognizable and makes it possible convincingly, bypassing the quotation, to do things that all talented artists have done before him.

Borys Firtsak has been conducting active exhibition activities since 1987. He is a participant in numerous republican and international exhibitions, more than 10 of which are personal. The most important of them: inter-museum project “Ukrainian Still Life” (Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Lviv, 2018), “In the City” (Kyiv, 2018), “Ergo Sum” (Kyiv, 2016), “Anno Domini” (Lviv, 2015), "Feelings and Means" (Sumy, 2015), "Pieces" (Kyiv, 2014) “Arsenale 2012”, (Kyiv, 2012), “Emanatio” (Kyiv, 2012), “Intime” (Kyiv, 2011), “Collection” (Kyiv, 2010), “Nude” (Kyiv, 2008) “She” (Kyiv, 2005), “Gouache” (Kyiv, 2004), “Painting – Graphics” (Kyiv, 1998), “Still Life” (Lviv, 1996).

The artist's works are kept at the Museum of Prominent Ukrainian Culture (Kyiv), the State Museum of Theatre, Musical and Cinema Arts of Ukraine (Kyiv), the Masoch Foundation (Lviv), Museum of M. Voloshyn (Koktebel), in private collections in Ukraine, Poland, Austria, Denmark, the USA, Russia, including in the collection of I. Dychenko (Kyiv), Eric Robers (the USA).