New York is a city teeming with landmark architecture and nuances of detail that are often overlooked by its inhabitants. Sometimes, it takes the eye of an outsider to put these elements in their proper perspective and, by doing so, recapture our imagination and bring the city back into focus. Victor Shvaiko paintings do just this.

A recent immigrant from the remote Ukrainian village of Altai. Shvaiko’s painterly realism describes New York with the freshness of an immigrant's eye and the exhilaration of a man filled with an intoxicating blend of passion and hopefulness. Storefronts we would ordinarily pass without note are captured by Shvaiko with gentle patience and even a bit of  joyful reverence. Are we so jaded as not to see this ourselves, or are we just a bit overwhelmed by our myopic routine? Whatever the case, viewing one of any number of paintings from this young artist can be a revelation. Each one shows us that New York is indeed a beautiful place, full of character and with a flavor unlike any  other city a place where the sun still shines within its walls just as brightly as anywhere else.

Shvaiko got his start early on when he was a boy in Altai. Fortunately for the young artist, this remote mountain village possessed a wealth of subject matter and he took full advantage of its rich and  diverse landscape. Later as a young teen, he enrolled into one of the Soviet Union’s two most respected fine art institutions, the Novoaltalsk Art School, where for four years, he painstakingly learned correct academic technique and traditional methods of painting.

After a number of shows, Victor was invited to take part in a traveling exhibition that toured throughout Hungary. Upon tasting life outside the Ukraine,Victor made a decision to continue along this road and traveled to Rome where he did further studies at the U.S.S.R.’s Rostropovich Cultural Center. This path continued until he reached New York City which is where this story begins, and the paintings of Victor Shvaiko speak only of more beginnings to come.