The exposition is being held at the premises of the Myloserdia (“Mercy”) Sodality of Our Lady. What unites artists Lesia (Oleksandra-Daria) Krypiakevych, Natalia Pauk, and Stefania Shabatura, graduates of the Lviv Institute of Applied and Decorative Art (now Lviv National Academy of Arts), is the fact that their oeuvre back in the 1970s-1980s helped revive an in-depth link with our prehistory. The example of this is, in particular, the tapestries “Cassandra” by Shabatura (1971) and “Horsemen” by Oleksandra Krypiarevych-Tsehelska (1979).
Stefania Shabatura (1938-2014) designed and wove tapestries. A public activist, she was a member of Prolisok (“Snowdrop”), the Lviv-based club of artistic youth; and spread samizdat. In 1970, she and a group of Lviv writers and artists spoke in defense of Valentyn Moroz. In 1972, she was sentenced to a five-year term in a high-security prison camp and to three years in internal exile under Article 62, Part 1, of the Ukrainian SSR’s criminal code for “anti-Soviet propaganda.” She was a member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, a coauthor of letters and appeals to international and Soviet organizations. She worked actively at the Lviv branches of Memorial and the Popular Movement of Ukraine (Rukh) and took part in the struggle for the revival of the repressed Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.
Natalia Pauk (1939-2006) is also a brilliant representative of the Lviv school of textile arts. Appraising her oeuvre, art critics speak of gorgeous coloring and emphasize that this painting component is always the core of the artist’s works.
Oleksandra Krypiakevych-Tsehelska is a member of the League of Ukrainian Artists, a public activist, and a participant in the resistance movement. Her artworks adorn the museums, culture clubs, and theaters of Zvenyhorod, Rivne, Dubno, Lviv, Moscow, and even the far-away Mari Republic. She created incredible tapestries, or woven pictures (portraits and multi-figure compositions), including “Nativity Show,” “350 Years of Kyiv Mohyla Academy” (both 1971), “The Forest Song” (1972), “Prince Lion’s City” (1974), and “Roots” (1977).
Professor Roman Yatsiv, an art historian, says that the exhibit “Textile as Weapon” deserved every praise. It only remains to add that artworks by weavers Stefania Shabatura, Natalia Pauk, and Lesia Krypiakevych are being displayed as part of the Lviv National Academy of Arts’ 70th anniversary celebrations. Admission is free.
