Spiritual Invention

Volodymyr Manzhos, known as WAONE ("Вован", pronounced VAH-VAAN), is an internationally renowned muralist, painter, and draftsman. The murals he painted alone and as a part of the street art duo, Ineresni Kazki, can be found around the world, from Mexico City to New York, from Paris to Kyiv. His paintings, works on paper, and sculpture have been exhibited internationally in Europe and North America. In 2014, Waone created his first mural in Kyiv condemning the unjust invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Since the beginning of the full-scale war in 2022, Waone has painted multiple murals in Ukraine, Poland, the US, and France to promote the Ukrainian cause, raise money to support the army and civilians, and highlight the diversity and depth of Ukrainian culture.

The artist’s father was an avid collector of local contemporary art and rare Orthodox icons. WAONE grew up in a home filled with artworks, old icons, art history books, and Soviet magazines with hand-painted illustrations. His interest in art seemed predestined as he began drawing at the age of five. His career officially began in 1999 after adopting the moniker WAONE. He began tagging with the Ingenious Kids crew in Kyiv before moving on to creating public murals in 2003 with another street artist, Aec. Their murals are Surrealist in style, depicting fantastical stories in monumental form for the viewing pleasure of the public. 

In 2005, WAONE and Aec established an artist duo–Interesni Kazki, or “Interesting Fairy Tales”. The murals of this period depict the nostalgic storybook characters of the artists’ youth. The murals became instantly recognizable for their complex fantastical narratives, smooth gradients, and incredible attention to detail. The next ten years of their careers were marked by challenges of painting enormous murals all over the world. Today, Interesni Kazki’s vibrant murals continue to capture the attention of people around the globe, from Australia to Mexico, San Francisco to Paris. 

A marked tonal shift occurred in WAONE’s career in 2016 when the artist began experimenting with black and white murals. This year also marked the beginning of his solo career. Reflecting his father’s Orthodox icons, WAONE strives to depict imagined worlds, reference various forms of the divine, and reflect on greater questions of human existence. It is noted that his non-linear surrealistic narratives also feature themes of ecological apocalypse, duality of life, and cosmology. Among his artistic influences and sources of his diverse visual vocabulary are Orthodox icon painting, Soviet figuration of the 1920s, Post-Soviet hip-hop culture, Soviet tradition of book illustrations, as well as European surrealism and muralism.