Andriy MentuchAndriy Mentuch (Andrzej Mentuch in Polish, Українською, Андрій Ментух - наголос в прізвищі на літеру "у") was born on December 11, 1929 in a small village near Lviv. He started his artistic career at the age of 16, working as an illustrator for an underground magazine published by Ukrainian Insurgent Army. After World War two Mentuch made his way to Gdansk, Poland. He studied art at Gdansk Art Academy (Akademia Sztuk Pięknych w Gdańsku) in the studio of professor Piotr Potworowski. The artist built his personal style in painting in the late 1950s. Mentuch creates compositions that are interwoven with his philosophical and aesthetic idea - life is people. People, not in a sense of crowded train station (the artist was in New York at Grand Central station and says he felt completely lost in a crowd) but in a sense of how we are connected to each other. A painting for him is all about people. People who have faces but no ears, figures but rarely hands. He often starts his compositions with no visual idea in his mind and has the creative process guide him to complete the painting, which sometimes takes years. Mentuch, who has been living in Poland most of his life, keeps close ties with his artist friends in Ukraine such as Lubomyr Medvid, Anatoliy Melnyk, Andriy Bokotey. He exhibited together with now famous Polish artist of Ukrainian origin, Jerzy Nowosielski in exhibitions entitled "M & N." The artist is 95 years old but he still paints, actively follows the news via youtube and uses the computer. He lives in his own house in Gdansk with his wife and has two sons. He dreams of having his own museum in Lviv one day.
