Denys Shantar

Denys Shantar (1997 Kherson, UA) graduated 2019 with a bachelor’s in Fine Arts from the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). In 2021 he finished his master’s degree in Costume Design at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. He exhibited in several Belgian institutions (Z33, Morpho, Quadrennial Ypres) as well as in Switzerland, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Latvia. Last year he received the Emerging Artist Award during the 25th Gabrovo Biennial at the Museum of Humor and Satire Gabrovo (BG). This year he curated the exhibition “CROSS-ING WAY-S” for the Museum of Modern Religious Art in Brussels. In April 2023 he opened his solo show at the Crux Gallery in Athens (GR), which is supported by Creative Europe and the Goethe Institut. He currently lives and works in Antwerp.

As a starting point for his artistic work, Denys Shantar often uses his own memories and those from other people and deploys different materials and techniques in order to create narratives which lie between reality and fiction. In his exploration of childhood, religion, migration, and queerness, he links the personal to global events. While searching for identity, he asks himself two simple questions: “Who am I?” and “Where do I come from?”.