Ukranian-born, Danish-based artist Sergei Sviatchenko graduated from Kharkov Academy of Art and Architecture in Ukraine, followed by a Phd at the Kiev School of Architecture. In 1990 he moved to Denmark. He has had numerous solo and group exhibitions across Europe and the US. In 2002 he co-founded Senko Studio, a gallery showing his own work, and the work of others. Sviatchenko’s clients include Nokia, Danke Bank, Grundfos, Danisco, Dansk Industri, Price Waterhouse Coopers, Sonofon and Giotto Music.

In 2007 Sergei won a much-coveted D&AD Yellow Pencil award together with design team Non-Format.

Sergei was chosen to take part in our 'Watch This Space 2' exhibition by Adrian Shaughnessy, editor of Varoom magazine.

Photomontage began with the Dadaists but is now ‘mainly associated with advertising’ – according to my Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists. Yet when we find photomontage in advertising, it is usually anaemic and timid. Real photomontage has political or satirical bite. We think of the work John Heartfield and his savage attacks on Hitler and German nationalism. Nearer to the present day there is the work of Gee Vaucher whose unsettling and provocative pictorial montages – often involving Margaret Thatcher – were done for the anarcho-punk band Crass. The current anti-war work of artist Peter Kennard keeps alive the tradition of politically motivated photomontage laced with narrative content.

By contract, Sergei Sviatchenko offers a more reductive take on photomontage. Most photomontage work seems overcooked and hesitant: it usually looks as if the artist is striving for reality. Sviatchenko, on the other hand, brings an iconic simplicity and aggressive directness to his work, and he does this by never striving for realism. His work has the deranged feeling of dreams. It is work that is psychologically unsettling. It is work that has bite, but it is also superbly stylish. Just don’t call it illustration. The only thing it is illustrating is Sviatchenko’s vision of the world."

- Adrian Shaughnessy, editor, Varoom Magazine

Until recently, Adrian Shaughnessy was creative director of Intro, the London-based design company he co-founded. He left in 2004 to pursue an interest in writing and consultancy, and is currently consultant creative director of This is Real Art, a ‘virtual’ design company. Amongst his current books, How to be a graphic designer without losing your soul tops the design bestseller lists.
He is also editor of Varoom Magazine, the Association of Illustrator’s journal of illustration and made images.
Varoom website