Oleg Sohanievich, an oil on canvas painting depicting an abstract composition in gray, white and black colors. Signed verso on the stretcher. Oleg Sohanievich (1935, Tulchin - 2017, New York) was a Ukrainian -American sculptor, painter and poet. Studied at the Art School in Kiev, then at the Art Academy in Leningrad. In 1967 he escaped from Russia by crossing the Black Sea to Turkey in a rubber raft. The details of his escape from Russia to the United States are both dramatic and admirable. Knowing authorities would refuse permission to exhibit his non-orthodox work, he decided to leave the country. One night in 1967, he and another artist slipped a rubber raft over the side of a passenger ship on the Black Sea. They spent the next 199 hours rowing steadily against a stiff current and in heavy seas, averaging about one mile per hour. They landed on the coast of Turkey near Sinops. In Istanbul, the two artists spent 113 days in jail, in solitary confinement, while police investigated them. A US resident since 1968, he became naturalized in 1975. American Life: In New York, he worked as a mover, so he could paint and create sculptures. He is best known for sculptures described as Stress Sculptures, made from metal. His abstractions may be described as a combination of dynamic power and energy with a logic which he associates with the computer and machine, in a search for compositional perfection. As well, the spatial consciousness in his paintings and sculptures may relate to his escape to the U.S., which was a distinct adventure through space. EXHIBITIONS and COLLECTIONS: 14 Sculptures Gallery-One man Show. Soho, New York. 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977. A. Emmerich- group Sho- New York, N.Y. -1975. Frank Marino Gallery - Soho, N.Y. - 1979. Caestecker Art Gallery- Ripon, Wisconsin - 2004. Zimmerli Art Museum, N.J., USA. The State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg. Russia C.J. Rodman Art Center, Wisconsin, USA. Nasker Museum of Art, N.C., USA. One of a kind artwork. Modernist Fine Art, Abstract Paintings And Wall Decor Collectibles.