Daffodils Painting

Who is Slava Kaas? Slava Kaas was born into a family of sailors in Yuzhne, Odesa region. When he was 3 years old, his parents divorced. Slava stayed with his mother, who supported his desire to become an artist from a young age. Growing up, Slava always loved to draw, but it was at the age of 7, after he and his mother had to hide in a city gallery from his stepfather, that he decided to become an artist. It was in the Yuzhne City Gallery that Slava met the art critic Svitlana Mykhailivna Kulikova, who gave him his first knowledge and a general understanding of the creative process, which he held dear throughout his life. During childhood, Slava's mother couldn't afford to support his dream of becoming an artist. To make his dream come true, together they searched for old wooden window frames and stretched sheets over them so that Slava could learn to paint. At the age of 16-17, Slava studied at the Kapitel art studio under the direction of Zhanna Viktorivna Rekova. While studying Slavic Philology at LNU named after Ivan Franko, Slava decided to dedicate himself to art. Inspired by Anatoly Kryvolap's paintings and meetings with Oksana Zabuzhko and Valery Shevchuk, he left the university after completing his first year. Slava moved to Kyiv, where he met prominent cultural figures and began working in the modeling business. He also appeared in several music videos, series, and television shows, while continuing to paint. The turning point came after February 24, 2022. Leaving semi-surrounded Kyiv with an album and a box of children's pencils, Slava was firmly convinced of his purpose: art is the meaning of his life. During this time, he painted portraits of soldiers, which became the first series of paintings "Kiss of War," gaining over 2,000,000 views on social networks. The next series of works, My Shades, was created during a six-month trip to the Donetsk region in 2024. It formed the basis of Slava Kaas's first personal exhibition, which opened at the House of Architects in Kyiv on July 5, 2024. Slava's paintings have found their homes in private collections in Ukraine, Turkey, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and the United States of America. He proudly mentions that several of his paintings are in the collections of the Yuzhne City Museum and the Kherson Art Museum.