Art in Excel

The Kyiv-based painter Oleksii Sai depicts the life of office plankton — a limited office culture to which a lion’s share of humanity now belongs to this way or another. He uses the technique called Excel-art. He creates his pictures in Excel Microsoft, which is typically used for calculations and spreadsheets rather than for art.

“I used to work in an office. Since then the heavy and imperfect office culture has become a painful topic for me. The plastic expression of this topic are pictures created in a calculations program. It is hard, unpleasant, and cumbersome to work with this program. However, the struggle with his material is a noble cause for an artist,” says the young man to explain his artistic choice.

He believes that the computer monitor has become the only window to the world for many people.

“People have stopped relishing natural sights — many content themselves with viewing photos or pictures on their computer screens. Meanwhile, we have other landscapes that replace nature, a trade center, an office building, and a street,” says Sai.

He has been working on this topic for nearly five years. Prior to this he made pictures of office life, for example, people singing a corporate anthem. Sai began using the Excel-art technique in 2004. Last year his works made it to the final round of the PinchukArtCentre prize for young artists. Sai considers Mykola Kompanets his teacher. He learned easel graphics from him. The same style as Sai’s works.

The young artist notes that his art is about the fact that the corporate world cannot be absolutely good, and that is why pictures are not perfect, either. However, there is still beauty there, because as an artist Sai cannot do without it.

All pictures are from the series “All colors of our monitor” (2010).

Sai’s exhibit will be open in the Small Gallery of the Artistic Arsenal until October 12.