The Akvarel Gallery hosts Illia Popiuk’s exhibit titled “My Love and ...” The artist is from Vyzhnytsia, not far from Chernivtsi, and the exposition is composed of watercolors and drawings.
The words, my love, refer, of course, to the drawings with the invariable characters, men and women in love. However, his drawings are illustrations of verse. In other words, they are Popiuk’s variations on one theme: love.
His watercolors are landscapes and still lifes. What may seem as a traditional approach is actually a demonstration of mastery at the highest level. The absence of outward inventiveness, even less so sensationalism, is explained by the artist’s objective being on an altogether different plane. His watercolors remarkably combine monumentalism and a chamber coloration, grand lasting themes (even if it is a bouquet of flowers) and something so very familiar, understandable, as to inspire a feeling of coziness.
