Maryan Besaga
Maryan Besaga (b. 1980, Ukraine) is a Ukrainian artist, designer, art historian, educator, and curator of cultural and artistic projects.
In 2003, he graduated with distinction from the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, Poland, receiving an MA degree. Since 2005, he has been teaching at the Lviv National Academy of Arts. He earned a PhD in Art History in 2010 and was appointed Associate Professor in 2012. From 2011 to 2025, he served as Head of the Department of International Relations at the Lviv National Academy of Arts. In 2020, he also earned a degree in Law from Ivan Franko National University of Lviv.
In 2009, Besaga received a scholarship from the Lviv Department of Culture. In 2011, his pastel series Presence was awarded Second Prize at the 5th International Pastel Biennale in Nowy Sącz, Poland, and received the Medal of the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków.
He is the author of numerous scholarly publications exploring the historical dialogue between Ukrainian and European art of the 20th and 21st centuries, published in Ukraine and internationally. In 2015, he received the Sviatoslav Hordynsky Regional Prize in Art History and Cultural Studies. In 2021, he received a Commendation from the Minister of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine for his significant contribution to art education and for his academic and creative achievements.
Besaga’s works have been presented in 21 solo exhibitions and more than 30 group exhibitions in Ukraine and internationally. Alongside his artistic practice, he has initiated and co-organized more than 100 cultural and artistic projects, including international symposia, exhibitions of Ukrainian and international artists, plein-air programs, and art residencies.
Besaga’s works have been presented in 21 solo exhibitions and more than 30 group exhibitions in Ukraine and internationally. Alongside his artistic practice, he has initiated and co-organized more than 100 cultural and artistic projects, including international symposia, exhibitions of Ukrainian and international artists, plein-air programs, and art residencies.
In 2024, Besaga expanded his creative practice into fashion design by founding MARBELI, an independent womenswear brand that brings together contemporary design, artistic thinking, and local production. The brand presented its debut collection at Lviv Fashion Week in November 2024.
He lives and works in Lviv, Ukraine.
Awards
2021
Commendation from the Minister of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine(Kyiv, Ukraine)
2016
Certificate of Recognition from the Lviv Regional State Administration for professional and academic achievements(Lviv, Ukraine)
2015
Sviatoslav Hordynsky Regional Prize in Art History and Cultural Studies(Lviv, Ukraine)
2013
Ivan Ostafiychuk. Sources of Creativity — selected among the Top 10 Books at the Lviv Publishers’ Forum(Lviv, Ukraine)
2011
Second Prize, 5th International Pastel Biennale — for the pastel series Presence(Nowy Sacz, Poland)
Medal of the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków(Nowy Sącz, Poland)
2009
Scholarship from the Lviv Department of Culture(Lviv, Ukraine)
2007
Leopold Levytsky — awarded Best Art Publication of the Year at the Lviv Publishers’ Forum(Lviv, Ukraine)
2001
Third Prize, 7th International Competition Dialogue of Generations in a Common European Home(Aachen, Germany)
Education
2020
Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Degree in Law(Lviv, Ukraine)
2010
Lviv National Academy of Arts, PhD in Art History(Lviv, Ukraine)
2003
Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, MA with Distinction, Easel Painting(Kraków, Poland)
2001
Ivan Trush Lviv College of Decorative and Applied Arts, BA with Distinction, Monumental Painting(Lviv, Ukraine)
Artist statement
My artistic practice explores presence — the presence of the human being, memory, time, and energy within space. I am interested not so much in visible form itself, but in what exists beyond its boundaries: traces, tension, echoes, and shifts of state.
For me, painting is a space in which reality ceases to be unambiguous. A figure, a landscape, light, or an abstract structure can exist simultaneously as a tangible image and as a carrier of something unseen. I work through layers of form, colour, texture, and translucent planes, allowing one image to emerge through another. In this way, the painting becomes a kind of palimpsest — a space where memory, experience, and the present moment overlap.
At different stages of my practice, these explorations have taken the form of reflections on presence and absence, birth and transformation, insomnia, cosmology, movement, and resonance. Yet beneath these changing themes remains a continuous interest in moments of transition — states in which the material begins to lose its certainty and form becomes a carrier of energy.
In my recent work, I have become increasingly interested in the relationship between the visible and the invisible. Line, light, rhythm, and colour become means of tracing what cannot be seen directly: inner movement, spatial tension, and the connections between objects, space, and the human presence. I understand this as a search for the contour of energy emerging from form.
My works do not seek to offer a complete narrative or a single interpretation. Instead, I aim to create a space of encounter — a space in which viewers can relate what they see to their own memory and experience. In this sense, I see a painting not as a finished image, but as a field of interaction: between the material and the immaterial, presence and absence, individual experience and the larger space of which we are a part.
Contacts