“This is an act of worship of the people who died from greedy lust of the red monsters,” told The Day the artist at the opening of his exhibition at the National Museum Memorial to Victims of Holodomors in Ukraine. The exhibition is timed to the 78th anniversary of the Holodomor of 1932-33 and is also dedicated to the two other Ukrainian famines of 1921-22 and 1946-47.
Valerii Franchuk, famous artist and winner of the Taras Shevchenko National Prize of Ukraine has worked for over 18 years on the painting series “Swinging Bells of Memory.” The canvases filled with tragic emotions were inspired by the stories about famines told by Franchuk’s mother Maria. She survived all three famines. It is symbolic that the exhibition opening coincided with the birthday of the woman. “Today my mother is celebrating her 93rd birthday,” spoke Franchuk. “She says she will live long to tell people about that tragedy.”
The artist recalls that at the age of five he for the first time heard his mother’s memories about the terrible events of that time. From that time on he’s been listening to her stories and recorded them throughout his life. “My mother told me about the terrible incidents that she witnessed herself. After each sentence my mother cried and I cried too – those stories could be told for hours, days and years. At the age of 92 my mother recalled more than 50 people who died in our village during the famine of 1933. Entire families died out,” he said.
Franchuk explains that he didn’t paint specific people on his canvases, instead, he tried to portray the tragedy in symbols and images. “There are many female images on my paintings – it is the symbol of Ukrainian land, Ukraine-mother, a mother, who lost her children,” says the artist.
“The memory of these tragic moments in peoples’ history, of relatives, who died during those tragedies, could be restored for the present generation of Ukrainians in two ways: through obtaining certain information, that is perceiving by the mind, or through the art, which is perceived emotionally, by the heart,” says Ivan VASIUNYK, co-chairman of the Public Committee for Commemoration of the Holodomor-Genocide victims in 1932-33 in Ukraine. “The vast majority of Ukrainians today believe that this was a terrible crime, it was genocide of the Ukrainian people.”
In 18 years of work on the series of paintings the artist has made 126 canvases, 72 of which are presented at the exhibition. Franchuk gave those paintings as a present to the museum, that is, as he says himself, “a present to the Ukrainian people” – this has been his dream for many years. By the way, five miniature wooden sculptures made by the artist over the last year are also present at the exhibition.
Franchuk has shared that the work on the paintings was not easy because the artist always lives through everything that will later be reflected on his canvases. “God gave me this hard work in time when I didn’t know what to do in this life. I have suffered so much and ruined my health while working on these paintings.” Franchuk believes that in order to be able to present complex subjects in art one must have artistic boldness.
Franchuk says that among the artists, especially young artists, such subjects are not popular. “I expected that there would be some artists who would make 20 to 30 works on the same topic so that we could make a group exhibit. But as it is now the topic is not very popular,” states Franchuk.
The artist explains that through his works he wants to remind the young people and the future generations of Ukrainians about this terrible tragedy and commemorate its victims. “If we do not remember those terrible events we will not have the future,” concludes Franchuk.
