Put on a Happy Face (2019)

This is an oil painting on the found soviet-era portrait of Lenin. The canvas is mounted on a supported wooden frame and sold ready to hang. Unframed painting is 80 x 60 cm. | 31.4 x 23.6 inch. It is signed, titled, and dated on the back.

Artworks are carefully packed using professional protective materials to ensure they arrive safely. All shipments include online tracking.

Original paintings are shipped in sturdy protective cardboard packaging. Limited edition prints are shipped flat or in a dent-resistant tube, depending on their size and format.

Shipping times vary depending on the destination but are typically between 5–15 business days after dispatch. Please allow up to 5 business days for preparation and packing before your order is shipped.

Please note that international orders may be subject to customs duties, import taxes, or other fees determined by the destination country. Any such charges are the responsibility of the buyer.

Each piece you purchase will come with a certificate of authenticity, a signed document proving the authenticity of the work and containing details about the artwork for your reference.

In 2015 the Ukrainian government banned all symbols and images associated with the USSR. But numerous oil portraits, sculptures, monuments and other images of Lenin began to be removed from public places decades before the "decommunization laws". What happened to the hundreds of thousands portraits of former Soviet leader? Many of them are already destroyed. Some of them had been left in attics or basements. I am looking for all these forgotten things and giving them a new life and a new artistic content.

The series of transforming Soviet portraits of Vladimir Lenin are something in between the meditative practice and the research. Images from the deep subconscious give rise to different sences that inspire to thinking and reflection. One of the main subject of the series is the transformation of human into brand that becomes entity itself and continues it's evolution without own prototype. Lenin's ideas are not widely known, but the brand is known to everybody. Brand maintains its awareness, but gradually losing the content transforming into a ghost.