Igor Grechanyk, Maestro of Bronze, is widely known in the Ukraine. Far beyond, his star is uncheckably in the ascendant as well. He regularly receives prestigious commissions from domestic and foreign governments. Ever since the Ukraine became independent on 24th August 1991, there has been a continued endeavor to strengthen the national identity, for which the famous and illustrious past provides a rich source, for the fine arts in particular. Within this context the recent past has seen the unveiling of larger than life-size sculptures of the Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko in Baku and Sofia, witnessed by the president. Grechanyk’s monument in honor of the bond of friendship between Kiev and Moscow has been in Kiev since 2001. Thus, various public areas are dominated by his monumental sculptures. Yet it is only in an indirect manner that they represent the true nature of his artistry.
The expression in the work created by Igor Grechanyk, in which primeval power, beauty and elegance vie for priority, to me is like a spiritual infusion of matter. He finds his inspiration in an older world that still permeates and influences the present. This is the magical world of classical antiquity, of Egyptian, Scythian and early Christian mythology. He transforms this past into a new present-day reality, which is at once universal and strictly personal. Through his work the artist ranges beyond the scope of the phenomenal world, thus giving birth to a new Baroque, in which the spiritual, immaterial expression takes precedence over and gloriously outshines the material reality of the sculpture.
Igor has become entirely fused with his m?tier, as it were. Like him, his father and grandfather were active as sculptors, as is his own son today. He is the new Prince Igor, who with his prodigious, profoundly idiosyncratic talent and in a contemporary and magnificent manner represents the Ukrainian identity.

Gerrit Luidinga