Max Vityk

Max Vityk (born May 27, 1964) is a Ukrainian-American painter and geologist who currently lives and works in Kyiv, Ukraine.

He is best known for his avant-garde geology based abstract series, as well as figurative art inspired by global revolutionary events to convey the fight for freedom.

Trained as a geologist, he constantly experiments with a variety of materials: rocks, sands, industrial materials, various paints and pigments, and other mixed media.

His canvases are often multi-layered, heavily textured, and resemble sedimentary and igneous rock surfaces covered by hieroglyphs.

Born in Lviv, Ukraine, in 1964, Vityk was surrounded by culture from a young age particularly since his father was an opera singer.

A close family friend mineralogy professor Volodymyr Kalyuznyi introduced the youngster to geology, describing the origins of life in the strata of rock and leading Vityk to his future profession.

From 1982-1989, Vityk received MS degree in geology at University of Lviv and a PhD degree in geochemistry from the Institute of Geology and Geochemistry, also in Lviv.

Following graduate school, from 1989 to 1997 he conducted post-doctoral studies and faculty work first at the Department of Physics and Astronomy of Calgary University and later at the Geology Department of Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg, Virginia.

During this time Vityk publishes a series of sientific articles in leading international professional journals: Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology; American Mineralogist; Economic Geology; Tectonophysics.

Since declaring independence in 1991, Ukraine has struggled to develop an identity independent of Russia and the Soviet Union.

Artists, writers, musicians and others found the ancient symbols of Ukrainian folk art powerful as metaphors for reclaiming their history.

Folklore, embroidery, native song and dance, and regional arts have grown immensely in popularity

From 1997 to 2005 Vityk worked as geologist at ExxonMobil (mostly in the USA), from 2005 to 2019 he worked at Shell PLC (globally) and from 2020 he is employed by Naftogaz Group in Ukraine.

Vityk’s first art studio was settled in the garage of his house in the suburb of Houston where he lived from 1997 until 2005.

Artists that were inspirational for Vityk - Paul Klee, Piet Mondrian, Yves Klein, Barnet Newman and Willem de Kooning - but it was Jackson Pollock who captured him most.

Vityk traveled to New York to visit the NYC Museum of Modern Art’s Pollock collection after seeing Ed Harris’s film Pollock.

Seeing the work at MOMA was vital for Vityk, who says he began to seriously paint under Pollock’s influence.

One of Vityk's earliest Houston series (2001-2003) shows the strong influence of early Pollock in their crude graphic line.

The works combine decorative folk pattern and the bright color of Ukrainian traditional craft.

Vityk admits to a life-long interest in art.

As a self-taught painter, he experiments freely, moving back and forth between figurative work, which he began with, and later abstraction.

Even in the earliest works, small format oil paintings of landscapes and flowers, he worked in heavily texture layers: betraying the geologist’s vision in the complexity and layers of surface patterns.

Vityk received no formal artistic training, but during his international geological assignments, he showed interest in the culture of the nation where he lived and worked, visiting art galleries and museums and interacting with local artists.

In 2005 Max Vityk moved back to Ukraine where he lived and worked until 2012.

In Ukraine he purchased a lake house with art studio in Zasupoyivka village located 100 km east from capital Kyiv, where several important Ukrainian artists have studios.

In the series Sin City (2006-2011), Transformers (2010) and Hallucination in Zasupoyivka series (2009-2020) Vityk returns to archaic symbols in a highly urban way, reminiscent of the graffiti along with Vityk’s signature heavy surface textures so suggestive of cave paintings.

The works explore the clash of the modern world and that of Ukrainian traditional crafts and legends handed down from generation to generation.

The figurative work shares the craggy, cracked surfaces and sense of three-dimensionality that becomes highly abstract over time.

In 2007 he had his first solo show entitled “Geology of Painting” at the Da Vinchy gallery in Kyiv.

In 2009, “Triptych” Kyiv gallery exhibited an extremely exquisite set of minimalistic paintings from “Silver & Black” series painted in Zasupoyivka - Vityk’s personal journey to explore color and texture.

The “Hallucinations in Zasupoyivka” series - one of the most important Vityk’s body of works, emerged at the beginning of the 2010s from the artist’s enchantment with a mystical beauty of central Ukraine, which also made an impression and influenced the paintings of Ukrainian artist important to Vityk – Anatoliy Kryvolap.

The earlier Vityk’s works show a strong folk Ukrainian influence, most clearly in the small series done in 2011 titled Hutsul, which was painted in Zasupoyivka.

Vityk references the Hutsul decorative patterns of embroidery produced in the Carpathian Mountains which are traditionally geometric and brightly colored.

Selected paintings from the “Hallucination” series were first exhibited at Art Kyiv in 2011, and later followed by solo shows at the Harry F. Sinclair House of the Ukrainian Art Institute in New York (2014), ArtsMart Gallery in Cairo (2016), National Museum Kyiv Art Gallery and Museum of Ukrainian Diaspora in Kyiv (2023).

In 2012 Vityk moved to the Netherlands where he lived and worked until 2015.

His studio was settled in the village of Wassenaar on the North Sea coast a few kilometers from The Hague near the horse racing venue known as Duindigt.

Paintings from the “Duindigt” series were strongly influenced by Western and Eastern mysticism.

Although Vityk is an American citizen and a global figure, his upbringing in Ukraine plays an important role in his interest in, and interpretation of abstraction.

In 2019 Vityk also took position of Adjunct Professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

Vityk started painting during late nineties to explore both figurative and abstract art, inspired by American expressionism and his geological knowledge.