This unique project made it possible to gather folk motive paintings by Maria Pryimachenko and landscapes by Anatolii Kryvolap in one room. “Color” is the first of the three stages of “Ukrainian Formula.” There are still “Line of Landscape” and “Culture Space.”
According to the curator of the project Valerii SUKHARUK, color is a universal component of culture and in painting it often dictates the rules of a genre.
Beginning from the orange clay of Tripillian ceramics, through gold, against which the Saint Sophia Cathedral mosaic shines in all colors and shades, it became the main tool for artistic expression in times of Baroque and remains the same nowadays.
Modern Ukrainian art uses color in relaxed and loose manner. It is color that helps to identify the majority of works created in Ukraine in the present time as those that are of Ukrainian character.
The central figure of the project “Ukrainian Formula. Color” is a well-known artist – Anatolii Kryvolap. The artist declares his vision of color as following: “There are many rules in painting but in order to take pure paint of bright colors and make sure they combine in harmony one needs to find some innovative approach. I was always fascinated with bright colors and I realized that I need to make an effort to cope with this task. Folk art, particularly Ukrainian, which often combines bright colors, has an intuitive feeling for color.”
The exhibition also presents phantasmagoric paintings by Pryimachenko. Apparently, no one would argue that color is the main formative factor in her work as well.
Nina Velihotska, author of the album devoted to the artistic work of Pryimachenko, noted that “the color itself seems to settle into the necessary form.”
However, one should not look for common points between color use of Pryimachenko and that of Kryvolap. They both are completely self-sufficient and independent, each authentic in their own way.
Both of these artists, of course, clearly have high level of artistic evolution. Eternal artistic dualities – collective and individual, intuitive and rational, professional and folk – met in the room of the project “Ukrainian Formula. Color.”
