Yurii Vatkin was born in 1975 in Dnipropetrovsk, and in 1977 his family moved to Kharkiv. At a young age, the future artist developed an interest in art and produced countless drawings that showed great promise. At 14, Yuriy met a prominent Kharkiv graphic artist and excellent teacher Oleksandr Bragin, from whom Yuriy, a budding artist, took private lessons. Two years later, at 16, Vatkin became a student at the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts. In his work as an accomplished artist, Yuriy Vatkin is guided by emotions and intuition. He neither follows the fashion nor puts himself in opposition to society. He likes to express his thoughts and feelings through oil on canvas, stimulating his viewer’s imagination and taking them along for the ride.