VLAD BORZYK

Born and trained in Odesa, Ukraine. Graduated from K. D. Ushinsky University, Faculty of Art and Graphics — diploma project a Byzantine mosaic icon, Mother of God of Tenderness (Eleusa), executed in smalti, stained glass, and fired ceramic tesserae. During and after my studies I worked alongside and studied with painters of the Odesa school, and taught for two years at the Kostandi Art School for Children, Odesa.

Fifteen years of professional mosaic work followed — across Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania — church apses, icons, monumental installations. Two pieces are fully my own from sketch to finished work: the diploma Eleusa and a mosaic portrait of the Odesa painter Kiriak Kostandi. The rest was workshop execution of other artists' designs — the slow, patient craft of laying tesserae one by one.

Today on the shores of Lake Huron, the work is painterly — warm naturalistic still lifes and Ontario landscapes. Both practices, brush and smalti, continue side by side.