Tistol does not want to define his style, considering this a matter for art historians. To make it easier to categorize and avoid questions, he referred to it as Ukrainian Baroque, regarding it not as a style but as his geo-cultural locus.
He worked in Moscow and participated in the art groups Furmannyi Lane Group and Tryprudnyi Lane Group. Together with Mykola Matsenko, he created the creative group for the study and conservation of national stereotypes, NatsProm. He worked as an artist-designer at the Mykolaiv Art Fund, where he painted posters and signs and created propaganda. Even during his military service, Tistol engaged in propaganda, expressing his unique approach. During this time, he met artist Kostiantyn Reunov, and together they formed the creative association The Strong-Willed Edge of National Post-Eclecticism, focusing on national symbols.
While working in the studio of artist Dmytro Kantorov in Moscow, Oleh Tistol began to earn significantly from the sale of his paintings. According to the artist, he was able to buy an apartment in Kyiv with the money from selling two paintings to a collector in the United Kingdom in 1991. With the collapse of the USSR and the economic crisis, interest in Soviet art began to fade. In 1993, after returning to Ukraine, Tistol’s popularity, along with his projects NatsProm and Ukrainian Money, began to rise.
In 2009, Tistol’s paintings went to auction at Sotheby’s in London. He created the series Aliens, addressing questions of self-identity and one’s place in space. The “national” theme is evident in the cycles National Geography and PRC (People’s Republic of China), in which the artist depicted portraits of representatives of small peoples and nationalities. In 2013, at the Under the Influence auction by Phillips in London, Tistol’s work Coloring Book was sold for £34,850.
Tistol’s works are held in the PinchukArtCentre in Kyiv, Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Norton Dodge Collection in the USA, Museum of Moscow History, the Ministry of Culture of Turkey, Christoph Merian Stiftung in Basel, several bank collections in Kyiv, and private collections in Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Finland, Ukraine, and Russia. Oleh Tistol lives and works in Kyiv.