Lviv – Sixty paintings by Petro Sypniak were presented at the Lviv gallery Korali (5 Mentsynsky Str.). According to art critic Roman Yatsiv, the artist is “a major figure of the middle generation.” In addition, the art critic notes that Sypniak’s creative evolution was very organic — there were no fissures and excesses during his search for expressive language. The artist has created many full-scale compositions and portraits, often going out into the city with his sketchbook. But most interestingly, this honored artist of Ukraine developed his own philosophy of history, lifestyle, and Ukrainian character as expressed through various customs and rituals. Critics believe that Sypniak learned the principles of classical painting very well and came to have his specific style, his understanding of the airy environment that he depicts. He was very active as early as the beginning of the 1990s, when he painted Ukrainian history-themed pictures. His works then grew more philosophical, grotesque, full of sharp imagery, and sometimes, self-irony.
The works that are now exhibited at Korali, Sypniak’s pictures from the last six years, are somewhat calmer. In them the artist does not overuse unexpected composition schemes and sharp contrasts, but at the level of intonations and meanings his paintings demonstrate an even richer imagination.
According to the art historian Natalia Kosmolinska, in the last two decades Sypniak is contemplating the world from a gentle, lyrical perspective. Thus, the following words of
Bohdan-Ihor Antonych may be considered an epigraph to this period of Sypniak’s work: “Unreasonably as it may be, I still believe that the moon which shines upon my native village... is different from the moon over Paris, Rome, Warsaw or Moscow... I believe in my ancestral land and in its poetry...” Sypniak sees the sense of painting in observing the nuances of poetry of everyday life in his immediate homeland. He says about himself: “Yes, I come from the countryside. Yes, my grandmother embroidered clothes with flowers…” Thus, he doesn’t need to seek some specific subjects for inspiration. The main criterion for subjects’ selection is honesty: the artist paints a landscape only if he has established an emotional contact with that particular place. Among Sypniak’s regular sources of inspiration is his birthplace, the village of Lany, situated in the Halych district of Ivano-Frankivsk oblast.
