“Christmas Bells” include 49 works by 20 folk and professional artists. This is a chamber, yet versatile exposition: ceramics, paper-cutting, woodcarving, oil painting, batik, and even icon on glass.
“We would like to make a present for everyone who is anticipating the holidays,” Olha NOVODEREZHKINA, the curator of the exhibit says, “The works presented in the project were created at different periods of time. There are works from the postwar and ‘stagnation’ years, as well as modern ones. We have managed to combine the works of folk art and professional art. Personally for me the work on the exhibit started with the wooden sculpture Angel by Petro Matl, an artist from Transcarpathia and triptych Angels by Natalia Hronska. Namely these two works set the tone for the selection of works by professional artists. On the whole, it doesn’t matter who created the works and when: each one of them seems to turn to all of us, it reminds us of the holidays without which our lives would have been incomplete.”
Bright folk pictures make a contrast to the white ceramics with restrained paintings. For example, Maria Prymachenko’s Grandfather Frost, a fairytale gouache picture or the lighthearted, colorful pictures by Mykhailo Onatsko – Riding Boards and Evening. Nearby stand porcelain vases Winter Fairytale, the refined ceramics of Nelli Isupova. “I created these works long time ago, in 1989,” says Nelli ISUPOVA, “At that time I got to the porcelain plant in Sloviansk, and I wanted to create something that would correspond to the time of the year. Something of white porcelain, something fine and decorative. This is the impression that snow and the New Year produce on me. I haven’t seen these works for a long time and I am glad to ‘meet’ with them again, feel again what I felt when I was working with them.”
EVERY ITEM AT THE EXHIBIT “CHRISTMAS BELLS” SEEMS TO BE TELLING A SPECIFIC STORY. VOLODYMYR ISUPOV’S WORK TEMPTATION (IN THE PHOTO) SEEMS TO WHISPER A STORY ABOUT A QUIET WINTER EVENING
Ivan Fizer’s decorative teapots, resembling wonderful animals, remind of childhood and family gatherings. Artist Vasyl Korchynsky, whose paper-cutting Carol is showcased in the exposition of the “Christmas Bells,” recalls: “I created this work on a Christmas Eve. I have an interest to paper-cutting in my blood. Paper-cutting was popular in everyday life in the region where I was born, Vinnytsia oblast. When my mother was whitewashing the house, my sister and I took the old paper-cuts off and cut new ones – that was our task. Later, when I became an artist, I became involved in other kinds of artistic work, like sculpture and graphics.”
THE AUTHORS OF THE EXHIBIT COMBINED THE WORKS FROM DIFFERENT PERIODS OF TIME, INCLUDING THE CERAMICS CREATED BY OUR CONTEMPORARIES AND 19th-CENTURY TILES (IN THE PHOTO) CREATED IN KOSOVE BY MASTER PETRO HAVRYSHCHEV
The laced metal angels seem to be ready to sing Christmas carols any minute now.
“This is simply welding and embossing,” says about the technique the author of the work Volodymyr BALYBERDIN, an artist, a winner of the Kateryna Bilokur Prize, “One day art critic Zoia Chehusova proposed to create an exhibit about angels. So, I created a work dedicated to this topic. The exhibit ‘Christmas Bells’ is impressive. Some people whose works are on display are not with us anymore. But what a fantastic vision of life they had! There are works both dead and alive, some works have become outdated, many experiments were left behind. Probably, some unknown artists are working next to us, and later their works will depict the 21st century. Therefore, the exhibit is exciting.”
The exhibit will be open through January 21.
