"Time Reflection II" Painting

Born in the USSR. Studied in Russia and UK. Live and work in London.
I create icons, but my forms of iconography are unlike any other. My icons are contemporary cultural hybrids; unusual, unnerving, stark and controversial.

“Oleg's highly attractive ‘symbolic sculptures’ may not seem innocuous, but they are beguiling – and contain a myriad of tensions. He has transformed the art of icon making – the all-powerful nature of a created symbol – and tried to liberate the icons which pervade society, from their conventional roles. His art joins precise sacred paintings with interactive electronics, such as microchips, mobile phones, radios and plastic toys – juxtaposing religious iconography with modern consumerism.

But the creating this symbiosis between the imagery of modern world and the religious myths, Oleg has created a new commentary on popular culture. His icons represent the changing times of our society, peoples attitudes, politics, and as he says “the unification of two polar things: old magic and new technologies.”

The art which Oleg produces has the unique ability of provoking the mind and the heart, which makes it doubly combustible. What’s interesting is how our environment has become so pervaded with icons, so saturated with symbols which aren’t just revered, but also derided, spoofed, and mixed, that people seem to have become immune to any mixing that takes place, and can be comfortably indifferent to the amalgamation of sacred symbols.”

Brandon Hooper

Oleg Ikona has exhibited widely in Europe and America, bailed as a witty inventor, cosmopolitan and poetic; yet in Russia be encounters widespread State and Church criticism for the anti-religious morality of his work. At 2004 after religious attacks on his art he left Russia for UK as refugee. His studio with art works in St. Petersburg burned down a month after he escaped. No one found guilty.