Yellow Ocean

Yaroslav Leonets is a contemporary Ukrainian artist who works in painting, graphics, and sculpture, while also experimenting with various forms and materials.

The artist is an active participant in numerous national and international exhibitions, art plein airs, and art residencies. Yaroslav Leonets’s paintings are held in private collections in Ukraine, the United Kingdom, the USA, China, Switzerland, Belgium, and France.

The artist was born in 1994 in Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine. Since his childhood, Yaroslav has been seeking a way to express his feelings nonverbally. Through his artistic practice, he has found a means to reveal and communicate what he truly feels.

Between 2012 and 2021, Yaroslav devoted himself to education. He graduated from the Kharkiv Art College and continued his studies at the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts, specializing in Fine Arts with a focus on easel painting. He later earned a Master’s degree in Monumental Painting from the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture in Kyiv.

Yaroslav Leonets’s art has been showcased in numerous solo and group exhibitions. Recent shows include “BAZAR” at the Art Museum in Khmelnytskyi (2024), “Unconquered cities of Ukraine” at NUAU in Kyiv (2024), “LAND, SEA, AND SKY” at Amy Kaslow Gallery in Bethesda (2024), “The forever now” at  67yorkstreetgallery in London (2023), Day after Day at Galerie@19 in Padeborn (2023), and many more.

Additionally, the artist has taken part in various residencies and plein-air sessions, including All-Ukrainian plein air “Portrait of Podillya” in Kamyanets Podilskiy (2023), All-Ukrainian plein air in Unizh (2023), Residence “Mariupol. Sea city”, project “Post Most” in Mariupol (2021), Human Rights Art Residence ARTIF (virtual, 2020), “MetaLab” Residence in Ivano-Frankivsk (2019), among others.

Currently, the artist lives in Kyiv, where he continues his art practice. 

Yaroslav Leonets’s original paintings span the genres of landscape, genre composition, and portrait. These include such works as “Spectators” (2021), “Two” (2021), “Native walls” (2022), “Home is home” (2022), “Yellow Ocean” (2024), “Canyon” (2024), “It will be spring” (2025), “Grandma's world” (2025), and many more.

In the “Family” series (2017-2024) depicting family situations, everyday realities, and biblical stories, Yaroslav Leonets seeks to rediscover and reflect his own naïve, childlike emotions—feelings he has genuinely experienced or contemplated at different points in his life. To him, these emotions are akin to precious moments that deserve to be cherished. Through this body of work, he offers reflections on themes such as the environment, family, ecology, and various human conditions—some of which are not commonly recognized as illnesses.

His series “TIME OF IMPERCEPTIBLE CHANGES” (2024) is dedicated to the brief moments in space that happen every time people breathe. 

“Mother and Child” is a series of intimate ceramic sculptures by Yaroslav Leonets that delve into the archetypal image of motherhood as a profound source of love, protection, and quiet strength. Crafted from chamotte clay and finished with transparent glaze, each piece embodies the silent, unconditional bond between mother and child—a deep, intuitive connection that transcends words. The works invite viewers to reflect on the universal experience of nurturing and being nurtured, highlighting the timeless emotional core of the maternal relationship.

Yaroslav Leonets’s paintings that have been digitized can be viewed on the UFDA website.

The artist works in the styles of realism, impressionism, and expressionism. His favorite genres include landscape, genre composition, and portrait.

As the artist himself has said, he has always been inspired by the search for new forms of communication with the world; consequently, his childhood exploration has become the work of his life.

In his artistic practice, Yaroslav Leonets primarily seeks to convey the beauty of nature and highlight ecological issues. He is deeply interested in the relationship between humans and nature, as well as themes of identity. His work also explores social topics, aiming to depict priceless, unrepeatable moments of life—childhood sensations, the transience and truth of the surrounding world, family values and paradoxes, joy and unrest, love and inner fears.

He mainly creates paintings, graphic works, and sculptures, while actively experimenting with new forms, methods, styles, and techniques.