"Tagebuch. Diary." Exhibition of Paintings and Sketches by Ivan Hubenko

INDEX: Institute for Documentation and Exchange warmly invites you to the opening of a painting and sketch exhibition, "Tagebuch. Diary," by Ukrainian artist, graphic designer and serviceman Ivan Hubenko.

For the past eighteen months, the artist has been serving in the National Guard of Ukraine as a rifleman. His works have been shown in nearly twenty exhibitions at museums, galleries, art centres and exhibition spaces in cities across Ukraine.

Hubenko was born in Kryvyi Rih, where he studied art at Kryvyi Rih Art School No. 1 (Yu. Bondarenko's studio) and later at the Art and Graphics Faculty of Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University (O. Yurchenko’s studio).

“Kryvyi Rih, the city where I was born and grew up, gave me a solid artistic grounding, the image of a man in a cap and the poetry of the industrial landscape. The masters I studied with instilled in me the habit of sketching constantly,” Hubenko says of his hometown’s influence on his art.

The exhibition “Tagebuch. Diary” is divided into two parts: paintings and drawings. The graphic section includes numerous sketchbooks by Hubenko, featuring both civilian and military-period drawings.

“Sketching is an essential practice for me and an important source for my paintings. I keep drawing because I don’t have the time to paint every day, so sketches make up for the absence of regular studio work. Since being mobilised, drawing has become my main artistic act,” he explains.

Focusing on the sketch format led Hubenko to a realisation: a sketchbook itself can be an independent artwork, a kind of artefact. Each sketchbook thus becomes a fragment of the artist’s diary, one of his most intimate forms of expression.

“Each sketchbook feels like a volume in a writer’s collected works — hence the German title "Tagebuch," which contains the word "buch" ("a book"). At the heart of the exhibition are ten paintings, each preceded by sketches and notebooks as the seeds from which new works may sprout,” says Hubenko.

• The opening will take place on 5 November at 6 p.m. at INDEX: Institute of Documentation and Exchange (33 Ivana Franka St, 3rd floor).
• The exhibition will be open to visitors until 1 February 2026, every Monday and Friday from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. and every Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.