Vladimir Umanetz

Vladimir Umanetz (b. 1986, Kostomuksha, Soviet Union) is a Polish-British artist living and working in London.

Education

2022 – 2023, MA Painting, Royal College of Art, London, UK.

2019 – 2022, BA Fine Art, Chelsea College of Arts, London, UK.

2005 – 2008, MA Graphic Design (did not graduate), Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań, Poznań, Poland.

Scholarships

2023, Phaedra Makridou Scholarship (Royal College of Art, London, UK).

2005 – 2008, Scholarship of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań, Poznań, Poland).

Selected Fine Art Exhibitions/Projects

Solo and Two-Person

2021, Hikari Hamada, Lana Rose-Wiszniewska, Thames Side Studios Gallery, London, UK.

2021, Alan Rotz: Mirror, Studio 127, London, UK.

Group

2023, What Now?, PM/AM Gallery, London, UK.

2023, Works on Paper, Studio 127, London, UK.

2022, Dub Inna Babylon: Two Day Sound System, Harlesden High Street Gallery, London, UK.

2022, Unidentified Paintings From the HP Collection and the Heteronymous Painters Printed Matter (presented as part of the BA Fine Art Degree Exhibition), Chelsea College of Arts, London, UK.

2021, The Rite of Summer, Havisham House Projects, London, UK.

2020, EMICA, Online.

2018, Redistribution, Dom Książki (the Book House), Poznań, Poland.

2010, Paradise Paradise, Townhouse Gallery, Cairo, Egypt.

2008, 0/h, Enter Gallery, Poznań, Poland.

2008, 8784h (aka 8780h), XR Gallery, Luboń, Poland.

Selected Yellowism Exhibitions/Projects

2018, The Opening of the Karolína Kurková Yellowist Chamber (KKYC), Thinking Room, London, UK.

2013, DADA’s Little Bitch, Freak Sister Yellowist Chamber, London, UK.

2012, No One Lives Forever, Natalia Vodianova Yellowist Chamber (NVYC), London, UK.

2011, The Opening of the Carmen Kass Yellowist Chamber (CKYC), Former Battersea Education Centre, London, UK.

2011, All and Everything, Natalia Vodianova Yellowist Chamber (NVYC), Giza, Egypt.

2010, Flattened to Yellow Natalia Vodianova Yellowist Chamber (NVYC), Giza, Egypt.

Talks

2023, Recently I Went, Royal College of Art, London, UK.

2022, Heteronymous Painters (Introduction), Chelsea College of Arts, London, UK.

Publications and Press

2022, Hikari Hamada, Lana Rose-Wiszniewska; Heteronymous Painters, London, UK.

2021, Alan Rotz: Mirror, Heteronymous Painters, London, UK.

2021, Rahel Aima: Alan Rotz at the Heteronymous Painters; Emergent Magazine, Online.

2018, Redistribution, Magdalena Abakanowicz University of the Arts Poznań, Poznań, Poland.

2014, Interview With Vladimir Umanetz, Afisha Daily, Online.

2013, Marcin Łodyga, Vladimir Umanetz: Manifesto of Yellowism; No Press, Calgary, Canada.

2008, Interview With Marcin Łodyga and Vladimir Umanetz; Notes Na 6 Tygodni (NN6T), Bęc Zmiana Foundation, Warsaw, Poland.

I walk between ideas, open to respond to them and challenge my thinking, whenever needed and how I feel it. If that means contradicting myself and/or splitting into heteronyms (different names in Fernando Pessoa’s sense), then be it. When I’m in my studio painting a picture, I can think of it, with a conviction, that I’m not the one who paints it, and I’ll take that statement as true. Essentially, I’ll daydream and simultaneously be an art collector, who only acquires artworks already made by different people in different places and times, including the future.

Informed by this heteronymic thinking and influenced by the functioning of earlier co-defined yellowism, as a very specific post-artist territory with only one existing interpretation, my latest project becomes paintings that are in a constant state of flux. I myself and others are allowed to execute any mark-making decisions on those picture planes whenever possible and desired, embracing the idea of ongoing work. The work, that is forever unfinished or is subject to multiple 'fixed' situations. All whilst I'm alive and, I imagine, as well when I'm not anymore present.

May 2023

Vladimir Umanetz, Untitled (ongoing), 2023 – present, mixed media on primed canvas, 200 × 210 cm (78 47/64 × 82 43/64 inches)

Unknown Artist, Unknown Title, unknown date, oil paint on raw canvas, 255 × 195 cm (100 25/64 × 76 49/64 inches)

Unknown Artist, Prototype, unknown date, mixed media on primed canvas, 200 × 230 cm (78 47/64 × 90 35/64 inches)

Unknown Artist, Chinonye, unknown date, various paintings combined, 290 × 240 cm (114 11/64 × 94 31/64 inches)

Unknown Artist, Unknown Title, unknown date, acrylic and oil paint on primed canvas, 200 × 240 cm (78 47/64 × 94 31/64 inches)

Unknown Artist, Unknown Title, unknown date, mixed media on primed canvas, 190 × 150 cm (74 51/64 × 59 1/16 inches)

Unknown Artist, Hip-Hop, unknown date, mixed media on primed canvas, 190 × 150 cm (74 51/64 × 59 1/16 inches)

Lana Rose-Wiszniewska, O.H.F.U.C.K., 2021, mixed media on primed canvas, 300 × 400 cm (118 7/64 × 157 31/64 inches)

Chan Karim-Bassik, Village, 2021, oil paint on primed canvas, 76.5 × 61 cm (30 1/8 × 24 1/64 inches)

Vladimir Umanetz, Pink Background Painting, 2018, mixed media on paper, unconfirmed: 293 × 221 cm (115 23/64 × 87 1/64 inches)

Vladimir Umanetz, Bird, 2018, mixed media, 55.3 × 43.7 × 1.9 cm (21 49/64 × 17 13/64 x 0 3/4 inches)

Vladimir Umanetz, Thomas Ruff Zeitungsfoto, 2014, oil paint on primed canvas, 30 × 30 cm (11 13/16 × 11 13/16 inches)

Vladimir Umanetz, Date 2014, 2014, mixed media, 119.2 × 62.8 × 11.5 cm (46 59/64 × 24 23/32 × 4 17/32 inches)

Launch Project

Vladimir Umanetz Archive, Thames-Side Studios, London, 2020

Vladimir Umanetz

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Royal College of Art