Born in Ukraine in 1961, Andrei Protsouk drew his first breaths in the coal and iron filled skies of the city of Donetsk. Donetsk, situated in the heart of the powerful industrial engine of the former Soviet Union, is a place more suitable for working in factories than for dreaming. The indifferent iron skies of Donetsk, Ukraine are more likely to produce championship boxers than fine artists but Andrei Proutsouk can take something from the reference. “They both require intense dedication and great strength. In boxing, a knockout can be a thing of beauty, and so is the feeling of having made a great painting,” Andre says. A bleak environment encourages the imagination. While attending the dreary public schools of Donetsk, Andrei’s teachers noted his precocious talent. Andrei was transferred to the Donetsk Art School, and then to the Lugansk School of Fine Art. Later on, Andre was recommended to the prestigious Repine Academy of Art in storied St. Petersburg. With his wife and son, he moved to the United States in 1994. 

Food, drink, men, women, the entire universe, are transmuted into symbols in Andrei’s work.  Men and women date, dance, dine, and desire each other with studied abandon. Andre’s work is sometimes comic, sometimes petulant, often sardonic, but it is always sensual.  The symbolic language in Andrei’s work is apparent, but it is the juxtaposition of the various elements, their sometimes conflicting and sometimes complementary nature, which reveals the integral themes in Andrei’s work. The artist presents love as an opposition of emotions, a collision of appetites, impulses, and feelings. The ancient theme of sexual tension and power invades the eternal struggle between men and women and is colorfully dramatic and playful in many of Andrei’s paintings.

Andrei Protsouk has displayed his art in many exhibitions around the world; in Germany, Holland, Russia, Ukraine, and America. Andrei's works are a part of private and corporate collections: Aurora Publishing House; Academy of Art in New York City; Barcelona Museum of Art, Spain; Coca-Cola in Denmark; Italian Art and White Knights of Venice, Italy; Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick, NJ, USA; Museum of Art Academy in St. Petersburg, Russia; Johnny Walker Expo Co, England; Francais Lang Art, Hamburg Germany; Art Connections, Zurich, Switzerland; Gallerie Adrienne, San Francisco, CA, USA; La Jolla, Artrageous Gallery, New York City, NY, Phoenix, Arizona, USA; Vera Gallery, Aphine, Greece