“The Man in the Cap”: INDEX Opens the Exhibition of Paintings and Sketches “Tagebuch. Diary”
Last week, on 5 November, we had the pleasure of hosting the opening of an exhibition by 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. During this time, due to the lack of time for regular painting practice, Hubenko has created a collection of sketchbooks, which he considers autonomous art objects and a form of compensation for the absence of a consistent artistic routine.
Thus, alongside paintings, the exhibition features sketches made by the artist during both his military and civilian periods.
“This is my first exhibition after an eight-year break, and I’m truly happy about it. I’m grateful for this opportunity and for the fact that my works found home among good people. As for the exhibition itself, it’s divided into two parts — sketchbooks and paintings. In my paintings, the image of the man in the cap appears frequently as a collective portrait of a person from the industrial landscape of Kryvyi Rih, the city where I’m from and where I studied art.”
Ivan Hubenko
Kateryna Iakovlenko, Editor-in-Chief of Suspilne Culture, artist, writer and Fellow of the Victoria Amelina Programme at INDEX, shared her reflections on the symbolism and aesthetics of Hubenko’s works in her opening remarks:
“What I find most compelling in these works is that I can see a familiar Eastern Ukrainian landscape. There’s also a theme of return through art — and a reminder of what art gives us today. Many people are sceptical about its necessity, but I believe that we need all forms of art, especially those that show varying perspectives. We never know what exactly will move a viewer, or what emotions a work might evoke. These things can’t be controlled, and that’s what makes them powerful.”
Kateryna Iakovlenko
Earlier, Suspilne Culture published an interview by Kateryna Iakovlenko and Ivan Hubenko about the place of creativity in a soldier’s life and the central motifs in the artist’s work. Read more via the link.
The exhibition "Tagebuch. Diary" will be on view at the INDEX space until 1 February 2026.
Visiting hours: Mondays and Fridays, 16:00–18:00; Wednesdays, 11:00–13:00 (33 Ivana Franka St, 3rd floor, central entrance).
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). His works have been shown in nearly twenty exhibitions at museums, galleries, art centres and exhibition spaces in cities across Ukraine.
Focusing on the sketch format led Hubenko to a realisation: a sketchbook itself can be an independent artwork, a kind of artefact. Each sketchbook becomes a fragment of the artist’s diary, one of his most intimate forms of expression.