Volodymyr Manzhos, known as Waone or Interesni Kazki, was born in 1981 near Kyiv. His father was an art enthusiast and collector of local works and Orthodox icons, which influenced his early passion for art from childhood. He began his career in 1999 as a graffiti artist in Kyiv as part of the Ingenious Kids group, later shifting his focus to visual storytelling through murals and wall paintings. In 2005, Volodymyr and a friend founded the creative duo Interesni Kazki, which became renowned for vibrant surrealistic murals featuring fantastical narratives, symbols, and subtle gradients. In 2016, the duo concluded their collaboration, and since then Waone has been working independently.

His primary visual language consists of surrealistic fairy-tale stories with elements of spiritual and symbolic context. His works explore themes of ecology, apocalypse, the duality of life, and cosmology. “The main purpose of my art is to discover who I am and to explore the external world. Through the creative process, I redirect attention from wasteful everyday life to invisible worlds, to the origins of existence. My narratives are dreamlike, non-linear stories that combine fantasy, symbols, and expression. I draw inspiration from the visual aesthetics of books and engravings by old masters.”

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2024 — “Ordinary Mystic,” Sapar Contemporary, New York, USA.
2024 — “Nuit de Lumière,” Centre Culturel d’Ukraine en France, Paris, France.
2023 — “Visionary Tales,” Idem Paris, Paris, France.
2018 — “This Art Is Too Smart,” Varsi Gallery, Rome, Italy.
2017 — “Weird Tales,” Antonio Colombo Arte Contemporanea, Milan, Italy.
2016 — “Sacred Gravitation,” Jonathan LeVine Gallery, New York, USA.

Selected Group Exhibitions

2024 — “Christie’s Paris: 20/21 Century Art – Day Sale,” Paris, France.
2024 — “The Collectyv x MOT,” MOT Cultural Space, Lviv, Ukraine.
2023 — “Art on the Battlefront,” Albertina Modern, Vienna, Austria.
2020 — “Imprint: Ukrainian Graphic Art of XX–XXI Centuries,” Mystetskyi Arsenal, Kyiv, Ukraine.
2019 — “Alchemy of Motivation,” Modern Art Research Institute, Kyiv, Ukraine.
2018 — “For Graphics,” Kyiv Art Week, Kyiv, Ukraine.

WAONE’s works are represented in private and museum collections in the USA, France, Germany, Italy, and Ukraine. These include the John David Mooney Foundation (Chicago), Albertina Modern (Vienna), Sapar Contemporary Collection (New York), as well as private collections of Hermès, SNCF, TSUM Kyiv, and others.