As an artist, Larysa Demianyshyna is multifaceted not so much in terms of images and genres but in techniques and types of art. No matter what technique she chooses, be it black-and-white graphics, oils, watercolors, or acrylics, she always attains a high level of lightness and creative execution. Demianyshyna is a representative of the Odesa painting school. She graduated from the Hrekov School of Arts in Odesa, the Ushynsky State University of Graphic Arts, and the Odesa Academy of Arts. Every year she participates in spring and summer open-air painting sessions in Volyn, Podillia, Poland, and Germany.
It should be noted that her vernissages have one peculiar feature – in the majority of cases they are accompanied by concert programs. For example, Odesa’s art critic and singer-songwriter Volodymyr Ostrovsky was involved in her exhibits in Lviv and Kyiv. Among other participants of such presentations were the well known guitarist and winner of international competitions Anatolii Shevchenko and the Petrovsky duo from Pivdenny. The famous singer Nina Matvienko was present at one of Demianyshyna’s vernissages and highly praised her oreuvre.
In 2007 the artist manifested herself in a new way by creating the design for the memorial complex to victims of the Holodomor and political repressions in Ukraine (village Kominternivske, Odesa oblast).
A prominent place in her works belongs to book illustrations. She has developed her own linear artistic manner, which merges spontaneity and emotionality with picturesqueness and multiple meanings. Demianyshyna’s graphic works include illustrations to collections and single works by Odesa-based poets Hennadii Shchypskivsky, Oleksa Riznykiv, Halyna Mohylnytska, and Vitalii Berezinsky, as well as Svitlana Mudryk from Lviv. Like batik, this kind of art offers room for improvisation.
Art critics justly say that her graphic works were influenced by the “whimsical” Henri Matisse, but somehow French light-minded subjectivism was transformed via the prism of Ukrainian substantiality to yield more clear-cut linear forms in Demianyshyna’s work.
I would rather draw a parallel between her works and those of Vasyl Sedliar. Some of her graphic works, created under the influence of Boichuk’s followers may be brought together into a separate group of “portraits.” Among them Mother’s Portrait is by far the best. But these works only resemble the genre of portrait, because the degree of generalization and figurativeness does not allow one to perceive them as portraits. Apparently, the constructive element in the painter’s works has the potential for expansion. A proof of this is also found in the abovementioned sculptural monument in Kominternivske. Demianyshyna’s penchant for a monumental and symbolic way of thinking under certain conditions may yield artistic samples that are no yet in demand.
Pivdenny’s Picture Gallery has recently hosted the master’s solo exhibit. Pivdenny is a small town located 40 kilometers from Odesa. Demianyshyna matured as an artist as she consolidated and developed the traditions of the Southern school of plein-air painting, which perceives the world in a lyrical way and pays increased attention to light and colors as the primary means of expression. Her landscapes and still lifes are dependent on her mood. There is something pagan that reveals the hidden depths of Ukrainian mentality in her worship of the sun.
Her new exhibit, with the prevalence of nature works executed in oils, is no exception, as most of her landscapes feature sunrises (Emerald Morning, Flaming Morning, and the like). The key color in her works is energy-giving blue, the most irrational of all colors, the color of clean spring sky or tranquil sea surface, the color of spirituality and infinity.
The blue sky penetrates through the leaves, covering with its reflections the velvet grass of the southern steppe and the openings in the forests of Bukovyna, Volhynia, and Transcarpathia. It is supplemented by the cold green of the forest cool, the color of bliss and melancholy, and combined with the golden sunshine.
Demianyshyna was born in Bukovyna, although she has cast anchor in southern Ukraine, so she feels and conveys with piety both forests and steppes, as well as marine landscapes, which happily combine the vastness of the steppe and sea and infinity of the sky.
Her plein-air works are represented by sketches made on a trip to the village of Petrivka, Komminternivske raion. This village used to be a neat palace, belonged to the Kuris family, and was built in the style of neo-romanticism. Today its ruins attract artists, solitary explorers, and enthusiastic local history researchers, stirring up their imagination and evoking nostalgic feelings for what was lost.
After relatively big-format acrylic pictures, Demianyshyna’s new exhibit displayed wonderful samples of miniatures that are notable for their organic colors and subtlety.
