Dance. From the Virtual Landscapes series

In themes and motives of his work Stepan Ryabchenko always gravitates to the fundamental - mythology, spirituality, nature. He is worried about epic heroes, religious subjects, and natural elements. Often the work’s subjects are fictitious plants and animals - surrealistic forms of life, existing according to their own laws in the world created for them by the artist. And the world itself is a match for them. Virtual landscapes where Ryabchenko unfolds characters stories is a whole alternative reality, a self-sufficient multidimensional digital space.

Abounding with strange inhabitants, the landscapes themselves are minimalistic and spacious - a pure canvas for the demiurge, the embodiment of the vastness and limitless possibilities of consciousness that can fill (or not) the available space with anything. Bright contrasting colors or light translucent haze, dawn, twilight or sunny midday, life riot or perfect desolation - in any form and condition the landscape in Stepan Ryabchenko's works is full of vitality. His landscapes look like world fragments full of hopes and expectations, just beginning to be created and filled with meanings.

The world appearance, in its almost naive primordial nature, is far from being entirely urban, technogenic, despite its technological digital origin. A virtual utopia, where prosperity and harmony reign, not knowing the interventions, smoothly emerging from the ocean of possibilities.

Natalia Matsenko, art critic