The dissertation is dedicated to the research of experimental searches in the plastic language in the fine arts of Kharkiv at the turn of the 20th - 21st centuries — the days when significant social and political upheavals took place, the artistic environment was changing, art was emerging from the shackles of socialist realism imposed by the Soviet system towards national revival. The focus of the study is the creativity of the Burime art group and the artistic practice of prominent artists Viktor Gontariv and Vitaly Lenchyn, whose artistic and stylistic system is characterized by an experimental orientation.
As a result of the conducted research, for the first time: experimental searches in the plastic language of painting of the Kharkiv region at the turn of the 20th - beginning of the 21st century were investigated; the regional features of the innovative trends in the fine arts of the turn of the 20th - beginning of the 21st century are revealed; the durability of the avant-garde tradition of the beginning of the 20th century is traced in the work of such Kharkiv artists as V. Gontariv, V. Lenchyn, O. Lazarenko, O. Shekhovtsov, V. Hrytsanenko, O. Lysenko; the author's creative and pedagogical concept «Apple in a leaf» by V. Lenchyn was analyzed; the peculiarities of the national form in the work of V. Gontariv are revealed; the relationship between design and easel in the work of the Burime art group is characterized; a number of works by the masters of the Kharkiv center were introduced into scientific circulation and analyzed according to artistic-stylistic and technical-technological features.
In the first chapter, the results of the historiography of specialized literature are presented, the source base is given, and the research methodology is substantiated. The analysis of historiography proved that in modern art history, the topic of experimental searches in the plastic language of painting of the Kharkiv center at the turn of the 20th century - the beginning of the 21st century was not specifically studied and was discussed only fragmentarily in publications devoted to the problems of the transformational processes of Ukrainian painting at the 20th - 21st centuries, without emphasizing the features of innovative forms in the Kharkiv region, represented, in particular, in the work of such artists as V. Gontariv, V. Lenchyn, O. Lazarenko, O. Lysenko, O. Shekhovtsov and V. Hrytsanenko.
In the second chapter, the evolution of the concept of "artistic experiment" is traced and three stages of its formation are distinguished: the academicized artistic experiment, the modern and the postmodern artistic experiment. It was found that the relationship between tradition and innovation in the context of artistic experiments is quite complex and correlated according to the individual position of the artist. The classification of innovation, which has a different character, is considered. In particular, it is possible to single out technical innovation, stylistic, conceptual, thematic, interdisciplinary, etc.
Transformative processes in the fine art of Kharkov fine art at the 20th - beginning 21st century are revealed. It is shown that despite the difficult political circumstances, the ban on everything Ukrainian and the dominance of the socialist realist method in art, modernist artists unofficially and underground passed on their knowledge to the younger generation, which preserved the continuity of the avant-garde tradition and aspired to artistic experiments, which intensified in the last quarter of the 20th century.
The third chapter analyzes the work of the Kharkiv monumental artist Viktor Gontariv in the context of his search for a national artistic form. It has been revealed that the features of V. Gontariv's national style are the Slobojan subtext, the Slobojan colloquial surzhik sometimes used in his works, as well as the creation of unique images of Ukrainian peasants of the collective farm era, which differ from the traditional images of peasants created by the founder of the school of "Ukrainian monumentalism" M. Boychuk.
An analysis of the creative-pedagogical concept “Apple in a Leaf” by the experimental artist V. Lenchyn within the avant-garde explorations of the Kharkiv school of graphics during the latter half of the 20th and early 21st centuries reveals the artist's unique approach to constructing forms in space. Lenchyn developed his concept based on the notion that the fundamentals of avant-garde geometry stem from nature itself. He exemplifies this through the intricacies of an apple tree, which features a complex structure with branches growing at various angles and in diverse directions.
The fourth chapter reveals the artistic and constructive origins of the creativity of the members of the Burime art group, which was formed in 1991.
