SOCHKA VASYL

Laureate of the Regional Prize named after Y. Bokshai and A. Erdeli (2000, 2013). Member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine (1995).

The artist was born in Uzhhorord. He studied at Uzhhorod boarding school No. 2 and preferred exact sciences – physics, chemistry, biology, and geometry. In 1958, he attended the fine art studio of Zoltan Bakoniia. For some time, he was also learning to play the violin at music school. To enter the art school, it was necessary to have an eight-year education, and Vasyl Sochka had ... a ten-year, and thus could not enter without an appropriate certificate. In 1968, he applied to the physics faculty of Uzhhorod State University, but he did not study there for long. Therefore, he joined the ranks of the Soviet army, and on his return, he entered Uzhhorod National University again. This time he studied at the general technical faculty one more year.

He changed his jobs one by one: he worked in an advertising company, in the association of restaurants and cafes, as a driver, he also was a tool setter, made souvenirs of wood in the Art Industrial Workshop, then in the Uzhhorod Timber Complex. He devoted all his free time to creativity and self-development. The value of self-development and self-education, according to Vasyl Sochka, is that he has kept a clear head and an open world view. At the same time, his views formed under the influence of literature: science fiction, Arthur Klark, the Struhatskyi brothers, Ivan Yefremov and others.

At his forty the artist decided to finally devote himself to art. His friends-artists Volodymyr Shchur, Bohdan Korzh, Vasyl Betsa and Borys Vasyliev-Sazonov contributed to the exhibition activity of the master.

The main materials the master works with are hard wood: ash, hornbeam, beech, cherry, plum, walnut, as well as bamboo and lilac, he covered the wooden frames of the newest works with gypsum and acrylic. He works on creating his works for weeks or even months.

A significant influence on the artist had Leonardo da Vinci, Volodymyr Shukhov and others. As Vasyl says, he is inspired by sacred geometry, cosmic harmony, a combination of male and female beginnings – yin and yang. The base of Vasyl Sochka’s plastic works is the principles of higher geometry, fractals.

An art critic Mykhailo Syrokhman says about the master’s work as follows: "The works of Vasyl Sochka amaze with their unexpected presence at once, and looking at them closely – they absorb all attention, reveal themselves and leave a strange feeling of touching something rare, the special harmony of reincarnation, metamorphosis. His works are always distinguished by a deep vision of the essence of the form, flight ease of performing that conceal a daily laborious work, beauty, elegance of the composition, perfect surface work. His exhibits are so sophisticated that there is unwittingly a desire for the opposite – some kind of coarseness, severity, courageous inexorability, but then you guess that it is not the shapes of the people world, human emotions and contradictions. This is the world of something ideal, higher, timeless, and emotions resonate, identifying themselves in it. "

The artist's most prominent works are "Echo", "Earth", "Light Transparency", "Crystal", "Flower of Life", "Spiral", "Oriental Fairy Tale", "Greeting".

Participant in all-Ukrainian, republican and international exhibitions, symposiums and plein airs. In particular, in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Belgium, Germany, etc. The artist's personal exhibitions took place in Uzhhorod (2012), Budapest (2017).

Vasyl Sochka's works are stored in museum institutions and private collections in Scandinavia, Slovakia, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Germany, Israel, and the USA. One of the works is presented at the school hall of the Czech city Zdar nad Sazavou.