There will be “Prima Maria Art Boulevard” on Maria Prymachenko Boulevard in Kyiv’s Pecherskyi district. It will be an open-air museum of sorts that will display characters of naive-style pictures by the outstanding Ukrainian artist Maria Prymachenko. The name of this mistress is inscribed with golden letters in the World Encyclopedia of Art. The artist’s oeuvre comprises about 800 pictures (650 of them are kept at the Kyiv Museum of Ukrainian Traditional Decorative Art). Prymachenko’s paintings are like a world that amazingly combines rhythm and color, image and decor. According to the people who knew the painter closely, whenever she was asked why she painted nonexistent animals and flowers, she would answer: “Why should I paint them the way they are? They are nice in any case, but I paint mine to please people. I wish more people could see and like my pictures.” Art critics believe that, painting animals, Prymachenko created myths, fairytales, and legends. For example, the bull, worshipped by tillers as a sky-related symbol of fertility, is portrayed on the artist’s picture as a star-studded creature with a crown and a bushy beard (“Blue Bull”). More often than not, her canvases also show horses and bears – the animals our forefathers deified. There are also birds on many pictures – for instance, doves which our ancestors believed had created the world, peacocks – the characters of ancient carols, and storks – the totem birds of Slavs.
The organizers promise that “Prima Maria Art Boulevard” will be the first large-scale cultural project that has had no analogues in Ukraine. This unique art object will “animate” images of the outstanding artist’s canvasses.
Fedir Balandin, an author of the Landscape Alley, is the project manager, while Eduard AKHRAMOVYCH is the author of the idea and the brand producer.
“This ambitious socio-cultural project is aimed at bringing the oeuvre of the outstanding Ukrainian artist Maria Prymachenko as close as possible to Kyivites and guests of our capital. It is unique in that a Kyiv street will become an integrated space to present the artist’s fantastic world. Not only residential and office buildings and the underpass, but also practically all the boulevard’s elements will turn into art objects,” Akhramovych says. “We have invited the best creative team to this project – the curators and artists who once created the Landscape Alley, including Fedir Balandin and Kostiantyn Skrytutskyi. We have already signed a memorandum with the Pecherskyi District Administration. We are now calling on sponsors to take part in establishing a grandiose art object. Whoever will make a charitable contribution to gentrifying the boulevard will be able to immortalize their name next to that of the famous mistress.”
“Installing various public art objects is a worldwide practice. New York, London, Berlin, and Vienna are the leaders here, but it is so far an altogether new experience for Kyiv,” Serhii MARTYNCHUK, Chairman of the Pecherskyi District Administration, says. “And when it is about turning a whole street into a true art space based thematically on the well-known artist’s pictures, it is a unique event for the entire city or even the entire country. Fantastic characters will ‘come down’ from the prominent mistress’s pictures and settle in the city, becoming its integral part. I am sure ‘Prima Maria Art Boulevard’ will be a true gem of the city and one of the most popular sights to see.”
According to project PR manager Ksenia HABDRAKHYMOVA, the art boulevard will be 500 m long. The project will comprise 16 thematic sculptural compositions, 3 stylized thematic arches, 2 entrance sculptural groups, and several murals based on Prymachenko’s pictures. Besides, it is planned to furnish the underpass on the intersection of Maria Prymachenko and Lesia Ukrainka boulevards with thematic items, including a mosaic picture, and to put up a commemorative plaque and a monument to Maria Prymachenko.”
