Feofan – artist, sculptor, philosopher…

In spite of past years, it is difficult to say when Vadim Fedorovich became a sculptor…

When as a kid in summer camp carved figurines out of soap, forcing educators to be worried – “where disappeared personal care items from hundreds of children?”

Or when as ten-year-old boy in Ostashinsky’s studio in Kiev made his first sculpture, a small composition…?

Or in classrooms by Republican Art School, when he learned to apprehend reality in its contradictions…?

Or being in Soviet Army, cast his first monumental sculpture?

Or probably the artist’s birth is related to the end of Lviv’s Art Institute, when he created ceramic panels …?

Possibly it happened with creating moulded iconostasis in St. Mariya Magdalina’s Church in Odessa, when he was blessed by the Metropolitan of Odessa Agafangel and named churches builder “ Feofan

Or sculptor was forming in the years, when he created his images in high reliefs “Christ’s road of passion to Golgotha”. And it’s almost 90 figures. Turning to the free style modeling, sculptor brings to his works the directness of life, filling each image with internal movement. All this is achieved with externally simple long- tradition way: combination in one relief elements from low relief and in fact three-dimensional sculptures. And important roles in all sculptures are draperies, which fill compositions with the thrill of life. They are calm, austere, and heavy; then repeat shapes of body, or preventing movement. The internal compositional integrity of reliefs is in the movement of the figures and details. And the scale of the work laid special requirements to arrangement all reliefs in as rhythmic integrity. The internal process for sculptor Feofan’s forming went from work to work, where every detail is made for integrity of artistic conception, completes and increases it, giving the work wholeness.

And continuing the religious theme, the author creates a number of reliefs. In high relief “Tenderness” the Mother of God looks to the Christ with love and sadness. She seems to feel that her son faces a difficult way, and with her warmth and tenderness she is trying to protect him from future sorrows. This centuries-old theme about warmth of human relationships, about mother’s love to her son. And in the work “Ascension” Jesus sees from above negligibly small earth and with his mute reproach appeals to people to think about tomorrow …

Speaking of the Feofan’s reliefs, involuntarily pay attention to their substantive, plot side, where the sculptor finds direct way to human heart, because for him a problem of form – is the problem of maximum exactness in feeling transference of live in the subtle nuances.

In the allegorical composition “Insomnia” the feeling of spiritual tension is traced in the smallest details: swift movement almost a flying horse, riding by her thoughts-birds, thought-bells, shows an expressive beginning in different aspects: in the external forms – in violent dramatic figure’s movement, and in the emotional, psychological tinge, where the heat of spiritual strength is explicitly perceived…

There is an attempt, to pass a special state of the world around us, in the allegorical composition “Dunes”, where the contours of the underlying figures live in a space as if its own internal laws. The figures are concentrated and closed, as if are separated from everything, that can abuse this concentration. But with their own harmony, the natural freedom and relaxedness they create a sense of connection between human and world around, where the element of sand under the impact of wind changes, and plastic form as if is in interaction with the surrounding space. But the author doesn’t impose on his own interpretation, believing, that the best in the composition is hidden in it mystery.