Danylo Halkin is a сontemporary Ukrainian artist and curator.

The artist engages with public spaces through spatial installations, happenings, and site-specific art. Danylo Halkin's paintings, installations, subject-oriented artworks, and other creations have been showcased in solo and group exhibitions in South Korea, Berlin, London, Bratislava, Prague, and Kyiv.

The artist was born in 1985 in Dnipro, Ukraine (then Dnipropetrovsk, USSR). He studied at the Dnipropetrovsk Theater and Art College before continuing his education at the Academy of Civil Engineering and Architecture.

The artist founded an independent NGO Pridneprovskiy barvinok (2018) and an exhibition space, “Barvinok Art Residence" (2020). 

Danylo Halkin has received numerous awards and accolades, including the Grand Prix MUXI-2011 and the Third Special PinchukArtCentre Prize (2013). 

Additionally, he was nominated for the PinchukArtCentre Prize in 2011 and 2015, as well as the Kuryokhin Prize in 2012. In 2014, Danylo was a finalist for the Malevich Award, and in 2020, for the M17 Sculpture Prize.

Before the large-scale war in Ukraine, the artist lived and worked in Dnipro. He has participated in several notable residencies, including the Antre Peaux Art Center and The Box Art Center in Bourges (2023), as well as the Cité internationale des arts in Paris (2023-2024).

Among Danylo Halkin's original paintings are works from the series Optical Prostheses (2022-2025). The artist, inspired by examples of Soviet decorative and applied art, such as stained-glass windows in hospitals, military recruitment offices, and fire stations in the Dnipro region, has created a cohesive statement embedded within the context of wartime.

In the black-and-white paintings, stained-glass windows are portrayed against a smoky sky, their surfaces coated in soot. These windows were either damaged by missile strikes or broken during decommunization efforts. The artist appears to affix the shattered fragments to the canvas, giving them both a new meaning and the status of art they never held before. Danylo Halkin’s paintings for sale are available on the UFDA website. 

The artist works with public space, exploring human life within a system that entails pervasive control and oppression, as well as obstacles in the form of various traps of social injustice. Danylo Halkin's art practice includes collaborations with state and municipal art institutions to highlight Soviet-era heritage in Eastern Europe, aiming to inspire its reinterpretation and museification.

Following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the artist launched a project aimed at exploring Soviet decorative art, focusing on the stained-glass windows in hospitals, military recruitment offices, and fire stations.

By drawing on the artistic heritage of the past, Danylo Halkin intertwines historical threads with the brutal reality of the ongoing war in Ukraine. He highlights the importance of questioning power structures, offering a fresh perspective on Soviet totalitarian art.