The exhibition “Woman,” presented at the gallery of the Lviv National Academy of Arts (LNAA), includes paintings and glass art works. This is the first solo exhibition of the LNAA’s sixth-year student. All works on display were created during the past two years.
The artist is studying at the department of glass art. Therefore, the main focus of the exhibition is precisely on glass works. They show women of various ethnicities with peculiar cultural elements. Importantly, the artist does not look to models for her imagery. Her characters are regular women who one can meet in the street any day. Still, they make up Masalovych’s miniature universe around which everything revolves.
“I was born in the countryside. I am a good eater, but it so happened that I am somewhat thin. It can perhaps explain why I subconsciously want to create such exaggerations, more buxom forms which are looking pretty and feminine, especially to men,” Masalovych told the press.
The artist’s paintings are notable for extraordinary expressiveness, dynamics of compositional solutions, and a distinct sense of color. Her glass art works exhibit high artistic proficiency and command of sophisticated techniques and shaping methods. Despite her young age, Masalovych has succeeded in developing an original individual style and finding new means of expression, achieving integrity and harmonious interaction of paintings and art glass.
“The woman is a key concept in Masalovych’s creative work. She retranslates this image in highly dissimilar variations: temptress, unsteady, exciting, tender, fragile to the point of being glass-like, and sometimes so unperturbed... The woman is a miniature universe around which everything revolves. She is both the hearth mother and an ‘art form’ which varies widely. Each work touches on a specific problem that has been experienced and reconsidered by the author. These are her personal inner reflections, a peculiar poetized representation of female essence, skillfully realized through painting and glass experiments,” we heard from Orest Prynada, the curator of the exhibition and an assistant professor at the glass art department of the LNAA.
Despite her young age, Masalovych has succeeded in developing an original individual style and finding new means of expression, achieving integrity and harmonious interaction of paintings and art glass. The artist is a prominent representative of the young generation of the Lviv art school. Masalovych actively experiments with various painting techniques as well as technologies and shaping methods in glass art. Her works exhibit notable artistic qualities, aesthetic perfection and deep meaningfulness.
