24/02/2026
VELYCHKO GALLERY has started in 2022, as a reaction to 24/02 and the beginning of the full-scale war in Ukraine, together with the Residency. It emerged as an urgent private initiative dedicated to supporting and protecting Ukrainian living artists, preserving and promoting their artistic practices, and creating opportunities for their voices to enter and actively shape international cultural discourse. Based in Cyprus, the gallery develops its program through dialogue with the local context, engaging in research and exchange that explores intersections with Cypriot culture, history, and contemporary realities.
During these 4 years our path has been defined by an ongoing search of our own approach — an investigation into how a residency and a gallery can coexist as a single evolving ecosystem rather than as separate institutional formats. We experimented with different curatorial models, production processes, and modes of collaboration, testing how long-term artistic research developed within a residency could transition into public presentation, critical dialogue, and sustainable visibility through gallery practice.
This process involved rethinking traditional roles: the gallery not only as a commercial platform, but as a space for discourse and experimentation, and the residency not only as retreat, but as a generator of ideas, communities, and exhibition concepts. Each project became a step toward finding a balance between care and professionalism, research and presentation, process and outcome — shaping a hybrid structure responsive to the realities faced by contemporary artists and curators.
Today, as noted by The Art Newspaper, “as the war enters its fifth year,” we’re entering a new phase of development. With the intention of strengthening collaboration with foundations, European Union and international cultural initiatives, we are establishing an NGO structure to support this mission. This step aims to stabilize our operational model and expand opportunities for artists to continue their practice despite ongoing uncertainty.
We continue to move forward in our own way.
📷 work of
