Creative people always find a special way to celebrate their birthday. They organize exhibitions, soirees, or presentations. For eight years in a row three Kyiv-based artists, Oksana Kirpenko, Oksana Berbeka-Stratiychuk, and Oksana Mylovzorova, celebrate the day of their saint with a joint exhibition opening on St. Kseniya’s Day, February 6. This year it was hosted by the gallery of the Support the Development of Arts Foundation in Frolovska St.
There is not much in common in the artists’ creative manner and style. Their alliance is based on long friendship and a common name. So, “St. Kseniya’s Day, Almost Natural” exhibition is a mixture of three styles. One uniting theme is the artists’ love of nature in their work. These charming women believe that the Ukrainian art is going through a period of uncertainty and lack of interesting ideas. In these periods, artists retrieve to working with nature, as if returning to their first lessons and attempting to find a starting point for a new perspective on the world.
Oksana Kirpenko prefers big- scale paintings. Zebras is a black- and-white painting, which disorients the viewer with constantly moving havoc. Goldfish is a phantasmagoria concealed behind naturalistic flowers. The Hunting diptych can serve as a bedroom screen because of its scale and form. Its first part, Hunters , depicts dogs with human emotions on their muzzles, and the second part, Game , reveals the passive resolve of their doomed victims. Berbeka-Stratiychuk works in the nude genre. Painting from life is an integral part of her creative process. The theme of this exhibition is a mirror with its reflection, evaluation, and extension. The Look, Reflection, Beauty , and other paintings depict human eyes investigating and giving back something important. Mylovzorova works in oil and masticator technique. The collection of her works replicates simple everyday objects. The titles refer directly to the content, Withered Tulips, Watermelon, Washed Dishes , etc. However, the artist has her own perspective on every object in her paintings. Bottles look like a fragment of a big city with skyscrapers and architectural accents. The beauty of the city is revealed with various colors and forms that are united by common stylistics. There is a special painting in the collection, Children’s Armchair . It has a beautiful story behind it. The chair was found by Oksana’s father in a garbage can in St. Petersburg. It is a real antique. The artist confessed that she grew up with this tiny armchair and then passed it on to her little daughter.
The party finished with the ritual blowing out of a candle in the form of a figure 8, which symbolized the number of joint exhibitions. Everybody liked the cake decorated with Oksanas’ guarding angel. The angel remained uneaten.
