WAONE

Volodymyr Manzhos, known as WAONE (Kyiv, Ukraine, 1981 ). “Вован” (pronounced VAH-VAAN), a traditional nickname for “Vladimir,” was extremely popular after the fall of the USSR. Manzhos adopted the Anglicized version of the name as his artistic persona. The murals he painted alone and as a part of the street art duo, Interesni Kazki, can be found around the world from Mexico City to New York, from Paris to Kiev. His paintings, works on paper and sculpture have been exhibited internationally in Europe and North America. In 2014 Waone has created his first mural in Kiev condemning the unjust invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Since the beginning of the full scale war in 2022, Waone has painted multiple murals in Ukraine, Poland, US and France to promote the Ukrainian cause, raise money to support the army and civilians, and highlight the diversity and depth of contemporary Ukrainian art scene.

The artist’s father was an avid collector of local contemporary art and rare Orthodox icons. WAONE grew up in a home filled with art works, old icons, art history books and Soviet magazines with hand-painted illustrations. His interest in art seemed predestined as he began drawing at the age of five. His career officially began in 1999 after adopting the moniker WAONE. He began tagging with the Ingenious Kids crew in Kyiv, before moving on to creating public murals in 2003 with another street artist, Aec. Their murals are Surrealist in style, depicting fantastical stories in monumental form for the viewing pleasure of the public. In 2005, WAONE and Aec established an artist duo–Interesni Kazki, or “Interesting Fairy Tales”. The murals of this period depict the nostalgic storybook characters of the artists’ youth. The murals became instantly recognizable for their complex fantastical narratives, smooth gradients and incredible attention to detail. The next ten years of their careers were marked by challenges of painting enormous murals all over the world. Today, Interesni Kazki’s vibrant murals continue capture the attention of people around the globe, from Australia to Mexico, San Francisco to Moscow. A marked tonal shift occurred in WAONE’s career in 2016 when the artist began experimenting with black and white murals. This year also marked the beginning of his solo career.

WAONE depicts imagined worlds, references various forms of the Divine, and reflects on greater questions of human existence, ecological and existential anxieties of our time. It is noted that his non-linear surrealistic narratives feature themes of ecological apocalypse, duality of life, and imagined cosmologies. Among his artistic influences and sources of his diverse visual vocabulary are Orthodox icon painting, Soviet avant-garde of 1920s, Post-Soviet hip-hop culture, Soviet tradition of book illustrations, as well as European surrealism and international muralist movement.