Tetyana Khytko

I express my thoughts and feelings through allegories. Roads, bikes, sails, birds and other objects in my paintings have symbolic meaning. Road can represent life journey. Wind associated with anxiety and awaiting changes. Broken umbrella is telling a story of broken heart. Sailing is following or fighting for your dream. I like discovering new objects with “meaning” to use in my works, like a poet uses allegories.


Born in Kiev, Ukraine, I became infected with the drawing virus at a very early age when I discovered on my parents’ bookshelf a book of caricatures by Herluf Bidstrup, famous Danish artist/caricaturist. So my early experimentation with art was in drawing caricatures of my classmates, teachers and other locals. I studied painting at the Kiev Art School and in 1987 graduated from the Kiev State Institute of Arts with a degree in architecture. After graduation I worked as an architect and later changed my career into graphic design.


I return to my passion, painting, many years later, when in 2000 I immigrated with my family to New Zealand. I began experimenting with different mediums and techniques to move away from the representational approach, participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions run in Wellington - WAG (Wellington Artist Group), Watercolour NZ, Academy of Fine Arts, South Coast Gallery and Portraiture Award exhibitions. The NZ Art Show (Wellington) is my favorite event. I have participated in the show as a Single Artist Wall exhibitor every year since it started in 2004.


Most of my works are based on first impression sketches and caricatures. I let them travel straight from my sketchbook onto a canvas with very little changes and corrections. In regards to colour - I should confess to a great love of green in all its shades. However there was a certain shift in my colour palette after moving to Australia in 2010.


My works can also be viewed on my website www.tetyanasarts.com, the NZ Art Show online gallery www.artshow.co.nz and on the Bluethumb, Australian online gallery www.bluethumb.com.au.

1976—1981 Kiev State Art School (Kiev, Ukraine)

1981—1987 Kiev State Institute of Arts (Kiev, Ukraine) Degree in Architecture

1997 Course of Decorative Painting (Kiev, Ukraine)

1998 Kiev College of Design (Kiev, Ukraine)
Certificate in Desktop Publishing

2002—2003 National College of Design and Technology (Wellington, NZ)
Diploma of Computer Graphic Design

May 2019 The NZ Art Show, Wellington NZ
SAW (Single Artist Wall) exhibitor

July 2019 The Camberwell Art Show, Australia

Oct 24-27 2019 The Other Art Fair Sydney
Australia

NEW ZEALAND

2001—2007 WAG, Watercolour NZ, the NZ Academy of Fine Arts, Art Encompassing at the Wellington Cathedral of St Paul (2006, 2008), the Adam Portraiture Awards (2004, 2006), Affordable Art Shows (2005—2007), Parklane Art Award Exhibition 2007 (Auckland)

Sept 2007 Guest artist at the Pinehaven Art and Craft exhibition, Wellington

Oct 2008 Invited for the Art in Action show at the School of Philosophy, Wellington

Oct 2008 Given a status of Elected Artist Member of the Academy of Fine Arts, Wellington

Dec 2008 Received Watercolour 2008 Art Award for my entry into the watercolour exhibition Splash 5 titled “Spring at Aro Valley”

Dec 2008 “Visually tactile” exhibition at South Coast Gallery, Wellington

Apr 07; May 09; Nov 12 SOLO at the Academy of Fine Arts, Wellington (solo24; solo28; solo34)

2008—2018 SAW (Single Artist Wall) at the NZ Art Shows, an annual 3 days art fair run in Wellington

AUSTRALIA

Nov 2010 stART (self-represented artists) at the Weekend Affordable Art Fair Sydney

May 2011 stART (self-represented artists) at the Affordable Art Fair Melbourne

Nov 2011; Sept 2012 Art Expo Sydney

2013—2018 The Camberwell Art Show

2017 Selected into 2017 International Artist Grand Prize Competition at the Art Revolution Taipei 2017, Taiwan

2016—present Artist at Bluethumb online gallery (www.bluethumb.com.au)