Eugene Vishnevsky (GenVish) was born in 1960 in the city of Kiev, Ukraine (USSR). In 1990 he immigrated to Israel, and then to Canada. Eugene has lived in Los Angeles, California since 1993. He has a masters degree in Biology and Chemistry and worked at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in medical research. However, Eugene has been creating his art for many years even when working as a biologist.

According to the artist, his style, black and white symbolic primitivism, appeared in 1985. In 1997 he began to work on the project, “Visual Coding of the Archetypes on the Basis of the Bible and the Biblical Mythology.”

The Bible is a book of codes for deciphering and understanding the superior meaning of human existence. The artist presented biblical images in a unique and unprecedented manner. Symbolic primitivism, the trident chosen by the artist, is close in relation to the ancient Chinese tradition of telling stories in the form of pictures rather than words.

Exposure to Carl Jung’s groundbreaking psychiatrist’s theory of archetypes, brought forth a new series of drawings, reconsidering the raw imagery of icon painting in the context of unconscious reflexive narrative that lies at the very back of our brains and motivates us invisibly. Vishnevsky applied Jung’s interpretive structure to Biblical stories; then, branched out to find and describe archetypes throughout human consciousness.

While growing as an artist, Vishnevsky was greatly impressed and influenced by art of Pavel  Filonov, Heieronymous Bosch, Marc Chagall, Rene Magritte and the Russian tradition of icon paintings.