PUBLICATIONS 2

Dr Oleh Rudenko
UKRAINIAN ACADEMY OF PRINTING

Sergey Hrapov’s Dream World
Sergey Hrapov’s creative imagination has given birth to a huge enchanted city, which grows year by year, conquering new territories inhabited by old and new protagonists battling over global history, human vanities and routines, greatness and villainy, joy and frustration, loyalty and treachery, or in short - what life is all about…

The heart of the city is an old marketplace with fantastic lions guarding the entrance to the town hall. Medieval streets fanning out from the plaza are ornamented with elaborate facades. Caryatides and atlantes support balconies, populated by beautiful women with demonic smiles, long, almost stone-like faces, squint-eyed playful looks and well-rounded strong breasts (ex-libris Karl Vissebs and Li Fu Tian). Griffons and eagles perching on the buildings stand side by side with imaginary creatures and look down on the bustling life in the streets and patios. This is where you can hear any number of extravagant, surreal tales and get lost in the infinite space of the past. You can fly through decades or even centuries, to meet a real armored knight; Don Quixote in repose, leaning on his sword and planning great new deeds in honor of his imaginary love (Giorgio Frigo); or a samurai who has defeated a dragon to win the heart of a fair maid (Fu Xian Zhai). Here you can meet a young naked beauty with the legs of a cat, lolling in the warm fur of the lion mane adorning the beast that is her slave (Nicola e Anna Carlone).

After savoring the enchanted city’s narrow streets, the artist suddenly leaves and bursts into a labyrinth of indistinguishable multi-storey buildings in a futuristic metropolis. He becomes a tiny cog in a huge mechanism, where a victor’s laurel wreath grotesquely emphasizes the proper state and place for an artist in this world and the hands spin around an eye-shaped clock-face. A humorous, meticulously drawn figure is the primary axis for an etching. Above the tower blocks, surrounded by metal objects and with a small propeller in its hand to transport it to new creative heights, the figure teeters on the rollers of technological progress (Work No.11).

Perhaps that enchanted city is Lviv, the artist’s hometown. Lviv is often described as a miniature Rome, because just like Rome, it sits on seven hills. But it is also possible that every city in the world bears something of the imaginary and fathomless urban setting created by the artist. This mysterious city lives in each one of us. It is hidden deeply in our unconscious.

Just like the city that sits on its seven hills, the art of etching in modern Lviv lies on its heights, and one of them has been constructed by Hrapov’s etching needle. This hill is only just visible in the plethora of dashes, dots, lines, spots and shadows that depict the city hidden under a veil of rain. The city is volatile and elusive; it is far too high and intangible to be embraced at a glance. Its pieces can be found in many parts of the world - at exhibitions in Holland, Belgium, Italy, England, USA, Korea, China, and Japan. In each one of these urban mazes, somewhere around the ninth or perhaps the ninety ninth floor, there is a figure of Sergey Hrapov, watching the world through the viewfinder of his soul.

Sergey Hrapov expresses his feelings through every type of media available to an artist. He is a master in the techniques of etching, dry-point, aquatint, and mezzotint. He lives in his very own, idiosyncratic, irrational, realm of eternal ideas. Using specific objects, he transforms these ideas into a picturesque metaphor and offers us the opportunity to read and interpret his visual text. He deconstructs the perfect shape of a human face, compressing it into the smile of a naked beauty on the cover of a pulp magazine; he shows us the sweet charms of sirens on their way to destroy a medieval fortress with their arrows (Yang Guang Chao). His own ex-libris, extending vertically to infinity, reveals the essence of an artist in this world. Fish eating fish – what does it mean? Does it symbolize the death throes of art by showing us how the artist devours himself? Or is it the symbol of human jealousy, pride and stupidity that makes people kill each other?

It moves incessantly on since the beginning of time. Nevertheless, the artist keeps dreaming optimistically and his angel continues to carry his heavy load - a huge mysterious fish (Aquarius). Sergey Hrapov’s enchanted city is a reflection of the microcosm in the artist’s soul. It is a home for famous and obscure heroes of human vanity, absurdity and greatness in global history, for they are the protagonists in the book of life. The end-leaf in the book is a tiny sign of time, an ex-libris as a metaphorical reflection of this magnificent performance…

Translated from the Ukrainian Xenia Agall