Artist spotlight

• Ostap Lozynsky

  

  I believe that icon art should evolve and change, just as the world around does. A contemporary icon is more personal and intimate because it reflects the artist's inner attitude to God, inner attitude to religion. Personally, I use a modern, unconventional form and contemporary metaphor, but it is still essential to keep the dialogue with traditional icon art. It is important to maintain the continuity of that tradition. Moreover, it is vital to show that such a modern icon art has not come from nowhere, that the old tradition exists, and that we still partially rely on it, using its best artistic achievements — especially those of the golden-age Ukrainian iconography of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. Nevertheless, achievements of modern art and modern philosophy of the twentieth and twenty-first century, for example, are still just as important for me. Without the cognition of these things, I would not be the person I am; hence, they play a significant role in my artwork. Therefore I could say that modern icon art is a much more complex composition of knowledge, skills, and personal experiences, which an artist incorporate into his work.