My name is Yevgeniy Brzhechko. I was born in the town of Zdolbuniv, in the Rivne region, at a time when everything was at the gate of changes - in 1986.
Studying in the 6th grade of school, two years before the start of the chemistry course, I became fascinated with this science, forgetting about all other subjects. Then I would not have answered you what exactly attracted me to this science, but without hesitation I began my first self-study, setting up my own laboratory at home, in which, between spectacular chemical experiments, I studied chemistry textbooks.
These first home experiments with the transformation of one substance into another, often accompanied by a change in color, amazed and fascinated me. Nevertheless, with the passage of time, the passion for children's activities began to melt rapidly, and already in the 10th grade, it came to nothing. After all, it was not science at all that attracted me to chemistry, but its other essence, and in order to understand what exactly, I had to wander a lot, which will be discussed further.
Growing up, life required me to make a career decision. My success in studying chemistry did help me to choose Pharmacy. Although, there is telling the truth, the passion for pharmaceuticals will never become as strong as it once was for chemical experiments in the home laboratory. Perhaps that is why already in the first years of the Rivne Medical College, having a secondary musical education and a knack for radio electronics, I've made my own DJ console, and in addition, having learned to work in music editors, wrote music for a while and played in a rap group as a DJ.
Having started my professional studies in Rivne, I completed them already at the Ternopil Medical University. There I worked on a thesis in the laboratory on the synthesis of new organic substances. It was no longer a home laboratory, but a real laboratory, and I, as if using a time machine, was able to dive again into the activity that caused immense pleasure in my childhood - to create new substances that the world had not yet seen. As my supervisor said, pointing to the newly synthesized craplac-colored crystals in a clear flask, that one day, perhaps, this red substance will feeds us and take us to a restaurant from time to time...
However, it did not happen as expected, and fate decided to follow a different scenario. The crisis of 2010 made it impossible for my parents to pay for my education and I was expelled from the last semester of my last year at the university. Classes in the laboratory have stopped. In a few years, I will resume my studies at my own expense, but only for the sake of a higher education diploma. The search for new medicines, which would sometimes take me to a restaurant, remained in the past, but the desire to engage in the creation of something new, even if it sounds banal, did not leave my thoughts. It seemed to me that life was avoiding me, but despite everything, I continued to expect something from it.
After being expelled from the university, I've started boring routine work in a pharmacy chain. Having lasted only a year, I've got a job in the marketing department of a pharmaceutical company, where I was able to engage with the creation of the same "something new", this time - advertising for medicinal products, with a new passion.
During my work, I've created more than a dozen creative ideas for TV advertising videos, most of which became successful cases and perfectly performed their main function - provided a significant increase in sales, also I have developed a logo for one of the most famous cough brands, became the author of registered names for a number of of the company's medicines, which are already sold on the market, or are waiting for launch in the near future, and the number of created advertising images, slogans, promotional campaigns, organized mass events, etc., excuse me for being immodest, is difficult to count. I learned to work in graphic editors myself, including for creating 3D-graphics, and therefore I created the design of a large part of the promotional materials myself. In addition, I've created the music and lyrics of the anthem for the marketing department, where I still work.
But in this series of memories, which are more suitable for a good resume or a premature memoir, one important event is missed. Before proceeding to it, it is worth remembering the period of the first steps.
In 2014, impressed by Savrasov's paintings, I tried to paint my first works with oil in the same style. But the character of the process of depicting nature, without synthesizing anything radically of my own (not so new, but precisely own), stopped me. Of course, Savrasov is not to blame. I had poor knowledge and bad general understanding of how a picture is created. It was probably worth diving into the study of works of classical or modern art and artistic craft in general, going to an art school, hiring a teacher and so on, but I didn't do it. Maybe because of laziness, but, I think, because of a subconscious desire to leave my own artistic self untouched for something else. Stopping at these first steps, I was like a dry brush that could either ignite from the slightest spark or rot forever. Then something was happened, about which it is time to tell.
It was one of the first spring days of 2015. I have been working as a brand manager in Kyiv for a year and managed to shoot my first successful advertisement. At the same time, the manager invited me to the annual marketing conference "Marketing Revolution". You probably know that at such events, at the very entrance, you are handed a branded package filled with various merch and souvenirs from partners and sponsors of the event. During someone's boring lecture, I decided not to waste time and inspect the contents of the package. Among various pens, keychains and notebooks, I found a selection of reproductions from the HUSSIt was this moment that became a turning point. I remember how I literally gasped after seeing the reproduction of the painting "Horse". My manager, I remember, also asked me - "Do you like it? I don't really like it." But I was stunned. Is it possible to write like that? Who is the author? The originals of the reproductions belonged, as you probably guessed, to the hand of Anatoly Kryvolap, and the photo with the painting "Horse" impressed me the most. It was then that I first heard the name of Anatoly Dmytrovych, and his "meditative landscapes" became for me the spark I was waiting for. And when I learned that this painting is a universally recognized masterpiece, I also made sure that my art taste was sufficiently objective, which was also important for me.
The mentioned episode, although it may seem like an exaggeration, changed a lot of things. And just as one feels the breath of winter cold in August, so I felt that still completely ghostly, incomprehensible but insurmountable urge to painting. This is my! I'm ready to live for it!
However, I had to pause again and keep this "spark" with me. Literally a month later, I was mobilized to the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in which I served in the infantry in the ATO zone from the early spring of 2015 to the very middle of the hot summer of 2016.
When I came back alive, I started again.
I studied the theory of color and form according to Johannes Itten, body drawing according to Loomis, how to work with paint - according to the video lessons of Igor Sakharov and Mark Carder. I lacked elementary "household" knowledge, , even, rather, information about which brushes to buy, which inks are suitable for work, which canvas should be taken, how to assemble a stretcher and stretch the canvas on it, etc. etc. I learned all this easily from the network. And in general, I owe everything I know to self-education.
I believe that it is important for a real artist to have a living soul and developed self-awareness, the essential baggage of not so much lived as experienced, and knowledge in our time with a sufficient level of motivation and abilities is not difficult to find. Of course, an academic art education would be an advantage, maybe not, because it's hard to say when school helps an artist and when it doesn't.
In 2020, I built my own website https://www.brzhechkoart.com , where you can see all my works. I started an original genre - self-interview, where I share my own thoughts in a conversation with myself. Also I've recently opened the sale of my works on Saatchiart. I maintain pages in social networks where I post photos of my works and the same self-interviews.
Artists close in spirit: Henri Matisse, Vincent van Gogh, Jackson Pollock, Amedeo Modigliani, Anatoly Kryvolap.
Like Anatoly Dmytrovych, I can say about myself that I am an artist of impulse. Work on the canvas sometimes lasts no more than an hour, although the idea may implicitly mature much longer. And as soon as it ripens, as soon as I feel that this moment has come, when I can no longer hold it in me - only then I take up the brush.
My workshop is minimalistic, a poor palette of basic colors allows me to maintain the level of concentration and improvisation that an "impulse artist" needs.
Дитяча любов до хімії таки привела мене до живопису. Виявилося, що в хімії я полюбив зовсім не формули, а те метафізичне та напівмістичне в ній, що є неодмінною складовою і живопису як такого.