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Meet Eugenia Gapchinska – Ukraine’s Most “Robbed” Creative Artist

When everybody sells your art except you…

Eugenia Gapchinska is an artist who calls herself the “Happiness Supplier No. 1”. She proclaimed herself with this nickname because her main opinion on any kind of art, especially on visual is – it is not made to represent and spread negativity. Also, she is the highest paid artist in Ukraine. Eugenia Gapschynska annually holds more than a dozen new exhibitions in Ukraine, Russia, France, Belgium, England, the Netherlands and other countries.

The artist has several private galleries in Ukraine and Russia.Her works are stored in European museums and private collections of art lovers and artists. Her works are in collections of well-known Russian and Ukrainian actors, TV presenter and singers. In addition, her paintings were at one time even bought by Luciano Pavarotti.

In Kiev, Odessa and Dnipropetrovsk you can find galleries of Gapchinska – “Galleries of Happiness”, and not only paintings but also handbags, pillows, plates, books and much more with the artist’s works.

Evgenia is 38 years old, she was born in Kharkiv in the military family. Here Gapchinska graduated from the art school, and then the Kharkiv Art Institute. After graduating from the university, Eugenia Gapchinska was trained at the Nuremberg Art Academy. In 2000 he moved to Kiev.

Her infamous peculiar style of appearance was not overnight, and for a man with such long-term background education, developing his own personal style was quite a journey. As we may know, self-taught artists are more likely to create paintings that are out of the canon. They are more free, because the strict schooling required following every nature’s law when transferring it to the canvas, the same as with people, body structure and anatomy, are crucial for writing portraits. This habit often becomes an obstacle, and artists with great talent do not use this talent to its full potential. As a result, become ordinary, which in the world of art and creativity is considered as a verdict.

So, the main quastion that comes from the title, why is she the most robbed?

The reason for this is that her style is so unique, recognizable and loved by people, that various departmental marketing departments decided to use her works for promotion and to raise products’ sales. And that is completely common and popular, but there was a problem. They did not ask. Ukraine has one of the weakest systems of protection of intellectual property rights. And commerce, without any fear of being punished, use this opportunity not to pay royalties for using someone`s work.

Eugene is so much over it. She had some real brand deals, even with a government-regulated post office company, who ordered their stamps’ design to be done in her style. But that is a drop in the sea comparing to the income she could have had, if all companies that used her paintings, pay royalties.

She started fighting against it and, I dare say, was the first artist to fight for illegal design use.

So what about her suing successes?

Artist Eugenia Gapchinskaya sued over 136 thousand UAH for publishing in the magazine “Ukrainian vyshyvanka” schemes for embroidery based on his picture. The lawyers of the artist managed to prove that she owns the rights even to the image, which was transformed into a scheme for embroidery. This is about the picture “Bread with lard”, which was used in the special issue of the magazine “Ukrainian Vyshyvanka” for 2016. The magazine published a pattern for embroidery of the character from the painting by Gapchinska, as well as several photo models in clothing with this embroidery.

Kiev artist sued Lviv entrepreneur 101.5 thousand hryvnia for selling magnets with pictures of her paintings.

Up to 40 thousand UAH compensation for copyright infringement was ordered by the court of the entrepreneur, who sold a reprinted copy of the picture by Eugenia Gapchinska in the Dnipropetrovsk region. This is reported by Radio Liberty. And this is the only case of having justice, among hundreds, about re-printing and re-painting her works and selling it as an original.

What do you think?

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