Igor Lipskykh: Strangers

In his series Strangers, Ukranian artist Igor Lipskykh’s work explores the fragmented nature of identity and belonging, a reflection of personal experience of displacement and emotional rupture during wartime. Living in Ukraine, the turmoil of recent years has profoundly reshaped Lipskykh’s perception of the world and his place within it. This body of work examines the tension between internal and external worlds, where the psychological landscape of war collides with the more intimate, human experience of estrangement.

The figures in these paintings hover between familiarity and obscurity. They occupy ambiguous spaces, suspended in a moment of introspection, caught in the crosscurrents of past and present. In many ways, they are not just representations of others but reflections of the artist and of the countless displaced lives he has encountered. They are strangers not only to us but also to themselves—caught in the flux of transformation that conflict and trauma bring.

The work in Strangers is a fusion of traditional oil painting and contemporary techniques like acrylic markers and spray paint. This layering of media mirrors the layering of experience and memory carried by his subjects. The bold, sometimes radical color choices reflect the emotional volatility and disorientation of living through such times. Abstracted backgrounds serve as metaphors for the uncertainty and fragmentation of a world at war, while the more defined figures speak to resilience and enduring humanity amidst chaos.

Strangers is as much about the technique as it is about the subject. Lipskykh’s creative process is one of constant experimentation, an evolving dialogue with materials that allow him to find new ways to express the complexities of these experiences. The tension between precision and abstraction within each work reflects the oscillation between clarity and confusion that so often accompanies trauma.

Through this series, Lipskykh invites viewers to confront the intimate and the unfamiliar, to question what it means to feel estranged—from oneself, from others, from home. These portraits are neither wholly resolved nor entirely lost; they occupy the in-between, much like the experience of living through and, hopefully soon, beyond war.