On my way to Ihor Yanovych's studio in Lviv, I'm listing the fundamental moments of his art practice: Yanovych is an artist who consistently works with non-figurative painting; he is sensitive to music and open to formal search on the verge with musical compositions; he experiments with the materials that have an industrial rather than artistic background; he always returns to the idea that art does not necessarily needs to be interpreted, while always requires an invitation to a subjective space and viewer's experience.

“Any art is basically playing with the form, its toolkit. However, in my art practice, the form is always secondary, it reflects subconscious inspirations, one's inner state, an idea behind a work of art. There must be some understatement in a painting that makes it possible to enter a creation process while viewing it, thus becoming a coauthor," Yanovych writes. I find myself in this “coauthorship" among the works from the Form series in the studio and later in two halls of Ya Gallery Art Center in Kyiv. This time Yanovych addresses the topic mentioned in the project title on a much larger scale and once again shows something new in his works.

Form. The series title seems to include us in the association circle on purpose: formalism and fight against the form. Memory of the form as a type of crime against the false ideological consciousness, the form as an attempt to embrace the sacral, the form as a technique that can be mastered or invented. It is also author's staying in the territory of formlessness. “I don't deal with formalism," Yanovych accentuates. Each series is neither a manifest nor a critical remark but a configuration of gestures and qualities of the matter that can reveal certain approximations of forms or experiences. Eroticism in Yanovych's paintings mentioned by Albina Yaloza. The microscope optics pointed out by Mykola Kolomiets. Cosmic matter that can be both darkness and the surface of celestial bodies. The motif of intruding in the consciousness, which was a topic for a common Lobotomy series with Anton Logov and articulated by the artist later. Weather-dependent atmosphere and environment. Lviv sandstone walls flooded with rains.

In the Form series, Yanovych completely switched to acrylic. His experiments with industrial materials, cement admixtures and enamel are left behind. However, a diverse set of gestures and their multi-layer complexity are further played out on the canvas and continue expanding Yanovych's visual language. The Form lists all discoveries, collects the things that were found earlier and shows new things. The letters are not a sign system yet, they are only an attempt to create a language, a symbolic system preceding any symbolization. Separate works contain dialogues between abstract expressionists Antoni Tàpies or Robert Motherwell and his elephantine, F-like forms. This dialogue with other authors is also written on the series background. Yanovych's comments to the Form series include Karlo Zvirynskyi's quote: “Each truly deep art is based on tragedy, pain and sorrow. Joy is superficial, it cannot evoke deep feelings." What events and experiences have accompanied the Form during 2019‒2021? What comes up on the texture surface and what stays deep inside?

The spray of an aerosol can, the diameter of the sprayed black paint, and then a thick streak moving downwards (the artist turned the canvas over), the rattling of a soft flowing figure, a black broken line, a white line coming through the paint layer, dotted lines, dots and spots. Moving through the reliefs in your own tempo and mood, you become an informal coauthor of the Form.

Borys Filonenko