Igor Kopystiansky was born in Lvov, Ukraine, in 1954. In 1977 he graduated from the Lvov Institute of Applied Arts. From 1980 to 1985 he was a member of the Group of Six, a group of Hyperrealist artists including Sherstiuk, Geta, Basilev, Filatov, and Tegin.
Kopystiansky sees cultural history as an object, and one that he can integrate into his artistic system. He works in archives and sees them as receptacles of the increased production of society. He creates paintings derived from numerous sources, old pictures, photographs, and weather-worn objects.
Kopystiansky has received international acclaim for his artwork. He has been awarded two prizes from Germany, the Munich city scholarship in 1989 and a DAAD scholarship in 1990. He participates in the most radical exhibitions of contemporary art in Europe and the United States. He lives in New York and Berlin.
