Contemporary Discoveries

Contemporary Discoveries

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Sale of artworks to benefit the International Rescue Committee to help support families affected by the crisis in Ukraine

Mykola Bilous

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Lot Closed

May 19, 01:36 PM GMT

Estimate

5,000 - 7,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Sale of artworks to benefit the International Rescue Committee to help support families affected by the crisis in Ukraine

Mykola Bilous

b. 1956

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signed, titled, dated 2019 and inscribed on the reverse

acrylic on canvas

200 by 156 cm. 78¾ by 61½ in.

framed: 212 by 167.8 cm. 83½ by 66 in.

Executed in 2019.

The artist, Kyiv
Donated by James Butterwick and Alon Zakaim, London

Born in 1956 in the Lisovichi village in the Kyiv region, Mykola Bilous attended the Kharkiv Art School, followed by the M. Samokish College of Fine Art in Simferopol, Crimea and the Kharkiv Art-Industrial Institute. Bilous’s large-scale, luminous canvases are inspired by his interest in cinema, evoking movie stills in which scenes are played out against a striking, pitch-black background. In his works, predominantly primary colours such as red, blue and yellow are employed, which despite their apparent ascetism, as Krystyna Zamostyanova writes, manage to 'convey life, vibrating suffering, passion, despair, exhalation, impulse...’ Bilous’s paintings are a nod to Western Pop Art tradition and its ironic interpretations found in Soviet Sots Art of the 1980s, yet as Raminta Jurėnaitė notes, ‘both the optimism of American pop artists and the sarcasm of his fellow-countrymen are foreign to Bilous. Compared to the one and the other, he is rather a melancholic.’


*The Consignor is donating 100% of the hammer price from the sale of this and other designated artworks, to be sold during Sotheby’s Contemporary Discoveries online sale held from May 13-19, 2022, to the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a not-for-profit humanitarian aid organization that is helping to support families affected by the crisis in Ukraine. In addition, in relation to these designated artworks, Sotheby’s will donate 1) 100% of its Overhead Premium to IRC, and 2a) where the artwork is consigned by Ukrainian artist(s), 100% of its Buyer's Premium to such artist(s), and 2b) for all other artworks, its Buyer's Premium, after deducting expenses, to IRC. No portion of the purchase price is tax-deductible. For more information about the IRC, visit www.rescue.org