Born in 1999 in Okhtyrka, Ukraine, Illya Skubak is an artist who made his path by transforming the overlooked into something enduring. Using discarded metal, signage, and fragments of the street, he creates quiet yet powerful compositions that invite reflection rather than dictate meaning.

His bond with materials began early, influenced by his father, a tinsmith able to craft almost anything from metal. Skubak recalls him making three full suits of knight’s armour, identical to those in museums. This respect for craftsmanship left a lasting impression on his journey as an artist.

After years of experimenting with canvases, Skubak turned to metal at 20. The crisis that reshaped his life in 2022 forced him to adapt to scarcity. “I decided that I would make work from anything I could get my hands on. I would be an omnivore in art.” His approach shifts with what is available. “The richer the country, the richer the rubbish,” he says, noting that globalisation has made many materials familiar everywhere.

For Skubak, the street is both studio and archive. “Trash is not just refuse. It is the city’s stratum, layered with forgotten moments and personal meaning.” Each object is a fragment of someone’s story, detached from its original purpose yet alive with potential. “My palette is what surrounds me. They have already had their first life. I transform them and give them a second chance. Imagine the rubbish that gets into the gallery and gets five minutes of fame.”

STRATUM presents the city as a layered landscape of memory, where stone and discarded matter meet at the intersection of permanence and impermanence. At its core is the STONE Project, developed with The Charoen AArt. The series includes 16 hand-carved stones, each marked with primitive symbols and paired with an NFT as its digital counterpart. Skubak calls it a “stone chronicle,” reflecting on world events, personal concerns, and the noise of modern information. “We intend to capture and leave for future generations… for people who will live in other worlds.” Each piece exists as both lasting artifact and fleeting file, what he calls “the cultural layer that exists at the intersection of technology and memory.” Alongside these, Skubak also created hand-engraved stones marked by time and touch. Known as the “stone newspaper,” they preserve fleeting information and add another layer of reflection on memory and impermanence.

For Skubak, materials carry their own content and history. Good art, he believes, is like the body and spirit working together. His works offer no answers, only space for viewers to pause, look closer, and reconsider what is left behind.