From the Series "Cosmogony of the Ukrainian People". Sheet 3

Volodymyr Harbuz is a Ukrainian artist working in the fields of painting, book and easel graphics, and monumental art.

The artist is a member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine. He has been nominated for the Shevchenko National Prize on multiple occasions. Volodymyr Harbuz’s paintings and graphocs are held in the collections of a number of Ukrainian and international museums, as well as in private collections.

The artist was born in 1951 in Kyiv Oblast into an ordinary family — his father was a tractor driver, and his mother also worked in the fields. After completing the eighth grade, the young Harbuz enrolled in tractor operator courses.

In 1969, he entered Kyiv Art and Construction Vocational Technical College No. 5. In 1971, he was conscripted into the Soviet Army.

He worked as a decorator for the joint-stock company Kyivozdobbud from 1972 to 1979.

From 1986, he participated in republican art exhibitions.

In 1987, he graduated from the Book Art Department of the Ivan Fedorov Ukrainian Printing Institute in Lviv. From 1988, he became a member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine. Between 1990 and 1997, he worked at the Lavra Studio on monumental works.

The artwork of Volodymyr Harbuz has been presented at solo exhibitions held in Kyiv in 1994, 1995, 1998, and 2001–2004; in Paris in 1990; and in Sydney in 2000.

The artist works in the fields of book and easel graphics, painting, and monumental art.

He is the author of graphic series on Shevchenko themes. Among Volodymyr Harbuz's original world are illustrations for the Kobzar, and the books Shevchenko and Eternity, Paths to the Stars, and The Psalms of David — as well as oil works including Kateryna and The Reburial of a Genius.

Among the publications illustrated by the artist are Presentations of Old Slavic Legends, or Mythology by Ya. Holovatsky, The Ukrainian People in Their Legends, Religious Views and Beliefs by H. Bulashev, Three Sisters by O. Storozhenko, the collection of Ukrainian folk tales The Devil's Mill, and many others.

UFDA digitised graphic works by the artist from the collection of the Regional Communal Museum of Local History in Borshchiv, including The Dream, pieces from the Series Cosmogony of the Ukrainian People, and works from the Series Shevchenko and Eternity.

Volodymyr Harbuz is an artist of diverse genres and remarkable technical versatility. His works are characterised by a synthesis of pagan traditions and the spiritual heritage of Christian culture. In every subject he depicts, the artist maintains — in his own words — an element of something "cosmically primordial," of the legendary, ancient land of Ukraine.

This quality is most distinctly apparent in the landscape genre. His landscapes are a colouristic polyphony of expression and colour that bursts beyond established form, beyond the plane delineated by the artist, as though expanding outward into space, into time, and ultimately into our own perception.

He describes his unique style as Cosmogonic Impressionism.