The charity auction “Love is all you need” displays 50 works by Oleh Radvan, mostly portraits and still lifes. The artist thinks that a subject possesses character, whereas people are inspiring, interesting due to their facial expressions and gestures, captured unwillingly; in fact they don’t know how they look like because they have never seen themselves from aside.
The loss of eyesight is what inspired Oleh Radvan to create. Interior designers and painters abroad, he and his wife understood that they needed to find something new. The artist has been involved in a constant creative exploration ever since.
“It is important to educate yourself,” Oleh RADVAN noted, “It is difficult to move to creation of your own style based on the learned material. If I stop, I will start copying what I have, things that are in demand. Copying yourself is a craft. My new works were created in white-and-blue colors. The red color that is present in the exhibited works is of course more dramatic, like our present-day reality. The red is associated with war and drama.”
Last works, including a Zaporizhian Cossack in national costume, created for the competition about the current events, are important for showing at European exhibits, dedicated to Ukraine. This is not the first war for the artist. When he lived in Israel and the US he was witness to a terrorist act and military clashes.
Commenting on the title of the project, the organizers of the exhibit emphasize that real love is connected with the truth, and in current situation the truth is on our side. During the announced truce the amount of help received from people has decreased compared to the active phase of the ATO, therefore it is important now not to forget that winter is close and that the army needs support of the volunteers.
“Everything started with the posts on social media that soldiers need their phone accounts to be topped up,” said the co-organizer of the exhibit Oksana DOVHAN. “That was how our first sponsored units emerged. Today we have over 200 phone numbers. At first we were helping the 25th Airmobile Brigade from Dnipropetrovsk, now – the 3rd Battalion of Territorial Defense from Lviv and 11th Battalion ‘Kyivan Rus’.’ Owing to the organizations ‘People’s Home Front’ and ‘Office Hundred for Helping Ukrainian Army’ we were able to load and send transport with help. Our project has a very clear goal. We are not just asking for money, we are paying attention of wealthy people that if they want to preserve the space where they earn the money, they will have to invest some money in this. Every time they donate to the army, they give their business a chance.”
The exhibit and auction will be underway till October 14.
