His work interweaves paradoxical strands of thought, incongruous painting techniques, disparate artistic traditions, and antithetical pictorial attitudes to express a coherent and pantheistic vision of reality.
After using this color on spherical sculptures, Topchy realized their connection to Pysanky, ornate Ukrainian Easter eggs which he made in childhood with his mother and paternal family, who immigrated from Stalinist Ukraine as displaced persons following world war two.
Further inspired by Klein, Topchy earned a black belt in judo under Karl Geis from 1998-2014 and is currently practicing Tomiki Aikido and Kyudo in the Heki Ryū Bishū Chikurin-ha lineage of Kanjuro Shibata XX.
Many TemplO/Zocalo collaborators achieved regional and national prominence, including Andrea Grover of Aurora Picture Show, The Art Guys, Jason Nodler and Tamarie Cooper of Catastrophic Theater, Kevin Cunningham of Three Legged Dog in New York, dancer Richie Hubscher and lighting designer Christina Giannelli of the Metropolitan Opera, Mariana Lemesoff of Helios Arts/AvantGarden, New York painter Giles Lyon, the late video pioneer Andy Mann, and conductor Jon Axelrod .
In 2004, as part of the Project Row Houses Festival (with the support of Rick Lowe, its then Interim Director Michael Peranteau and in collaboration with architect Cameron Armstrong and artist Jack Massing), Topchy installed a single donated container simply known as Seed.
Within Seed Topchy constructed mock-ups of shipping containers converted to habitable boxes re-purposed as a school, hospital, jail, shop, mall and residential living facilities.
Organ was featured in the 2009 "No Zoning" exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston curated by Toby Kamps and Meredith Goldsmith, and with further assistance from consultant Mariana Lemesoff, architect Si Dang, engineer Hisham El-Chaar, then Executive Director Heidi Vaughn, the project become an emergent reality.
now known as HIVE, or Habitable Interdisciplinary Visionary Environment, the project is looking to reach the next stage beyond planning to acquire a permanent site, grow its board of directors, and build community.
In 2006, Topchy began his "Iconic Portrait Strand", using traditional Byzantine materials—egg-vinegar tempera, minerals, honey, beer, vodka, fig milk, cloves, linseed oil and gold leaf—painted on deme-shaped wooden panels.
According to poet Randall Watson, Topchy rejects the traditional notions that divide the sacred and the profane, insisting instead on the equivalent necessity of the ordinary as a container through which the extraordinary is revealed.
In 2012, Topchy received an Idea Fund / Andy Warhol Foundation grant for his project Archetapas-Gastronanza, a collaboration with Robert Rosenberg (AKA Chef Bob) to create a total, edible work of art coupled with scientific inquiry for public consumption via a continuing series of public tasting/performance events wherein participants enter a repurposed shipping container or trailer to be offered an array of geometrically shaped, colored, flavored gelatins and given an opportunity to complete a recorded associative survey whereby a consensus is realized as to which edible sculptures are assigned specific archetypal significance.
"We are introducing a gustatory element to create a total, edible work of art for public consumption and scientific inquiry in order to establish an interdependent connection conjoining universal design, color and flavor, an emergent, distinct order, an iconic art gleaned following series of public pate de fruit tasting/performance/events wherein participants enter a specially re-purposed trailer to be offered Archetapas from the menu, until a consensus is realized as to which shapes are ultimately assigned specific archetypal significance; together we will name it.
It is anticipated that this project will include and transcend the quantitative data and qualitative meaning gathered from many people with different backgrounds; it is a poly-cultural associative survey which is pre-lingual and may yield archetypal forms that are universally recognizable.