He is a leading figure of the Executed Renaissance — a generation of Ukrainian poets, writers, and artists killed by the Soviet regime.

He founded the futurist groups Aspanfut, Komunkult, Nova Generatsiya, and Kverofuturism, better known in English as "Panfuturism".

Semenko was an active participant of the movement that sought to break with the official Soviet cultural policy at the onset of the 20th century.

[2] His dissident art led him to establish avant-garde groups in Kyiv and Kharkiv.

[2] Along with several Ukrainian intellectuals, he was arrested in 1937, sentenced to death and shot in Kyiv on 23 October 1937.