Svitovyd is something that unites and represents the whole environment, in other words it’s the Universe (the definition of Vasyl Skurativsky). It is also the name of an artistic community that celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2010. You must admit that it is a considerable age… During all those years its members have changed: some have left the community while others have joined it. Among Svitovyd’s new recruits are Oles Solovei, Viktor Konoval and Petro Zykunov.
The main body, however, remains invariable: Taras Shevchenko National Prize winners Maria Pryimachenko (recently deceased, though Svitovyd continues to exhibit her paintings, as well as sculptures by Vitalii Shyshov who, unfortunately, has also passed), Mykola Storozhenko, and Oleksandr Ivakhnenko; the well-known artists Volodymyr Harbuz, Vasyl Korchynsky, Vasyl Kopaihorenko, Ivan Pylypenko, Olena Balykova, Vitalii Movchan, Ivan Bryniuk, and Mykola Kochubei. The community’s favorite topics are also stable.
One of the first researchers of the Svitovyd heritage Pidhora wrote about it: “It is a bright phenomenon of the end of 20th century. The complicated and multidimensional world, its anxieties and searches, are marked by the tension, dynamism and expressivity; the metaphysics of feelings, the combination of the rational and the irrational can be read in different ways in this expressive and vivid art.” The artists also revel in ancient sources, the purity and transparency of the national essence, to its most sincere displays when humans are united with nature…
The Honored Artist of Ukraine Anatolii Marchuk, who has been a member of Svitovyd since 1998, thinks that one of the most important requirements one has to meet to enter this artistic community are works of art that reproduce the Ukrainian world. Certainly, these works have to cut to the heart. What does it mean? The artist answers: “When you come to an exhibit as a passive onlooker, you passively go by the paintings, looking at them… Suddenly you get excited, worried, amazed and you get an insight… The same happens when you take a poetry book for the first time, you read one poem, then another. And suddenly… The audiences are the co-authors of this process.”
Anatolii MARCHUK’s paintings are vivid and luscious, saturated with light; they differ by the unconventional plots, though their characters are well-known.
Anatolii, every conscious person is looking for their place in life and in creativity. What is most important for you in those searches?
“I believe that everybody has to live in harmony with their conscience and have order in their house. You have to build up this order persistently. Then we’ll have well-being in our country. So, we have to start with small steps; if everyone makes their house comfortable we’ll improve our country. The government mustn’t interfere. Unfortunately, we don’t have any conditions for building our houses or our country — the legislative chaos and oppressive taxes hinder us. Probably that is why my life has split into creative and public activities. On the one hand, I’m a metropolitan artist, on the other hand — a village enlightener who has turned his father’s house in the village of Kozychanka, Kyiv oblast, into a cultural and artistic center. For fifteen years I have been running open air sessions for painters and symposiums for sculptors, and organizing literature festivals in the Kozychanka mansion. In the district town of Makariv they created a district art gallery exhibiting the works of painters who attended my sessions. Each time the painters gave us one of their works and this way a decent collection was gathered: it includes 80 works by 60 famous Ukrainian painters, with Honored and People’s artists, professors and academics among them. By the way, on the whole territory of Kyiv oblast there are only three art galleries. In my plans I want to persuade the government to transform the Makariv Art Gallery into a State Art Museum. But I need extra space to open a permanent sculpture exhibit. That is why the collection of 25 sculptures is placed in my mansion in the open air. Even Kyiv doesn’t have such a collection; there are just separate sculptures in the parks there.”
Do you sometimes feel powerless?
“I do, but I can’t watch this mess indifferently. I like beautiful and substantive life, I like nice and creative people around me. That is why I continue the sculpture symposiums and open air painting sessions at my own expense; such events inspire me as I can’t stay in my studio all the time. I have recently published a book The History of Kozychanka with my own money — it was my present to the people.”
Ukrainian artists are now worried about the unreasonable rise of rent for studios. How does it threaten artists?
“It doesn’t threaten the artists, but the nation. If there aren’t any studios there is no creative work, no masterpieces. Now the state doesn’t protect culture or the arts.”
You’ve been with Svitovyd since 1998. Was it difficult to get in, since it’s quite a private community?
“No, it wasn’t. You know, I even think that the people in Svitovyd are very different, but at the same time they are united by their common purpose.”
One of the Svitovyd founders Volodymyr Harbuz says the following about the artist’s destiny in the world: “I believe in the light in the chaos, in the eternal movement and the cosmic energy of creative work — the movement of thoughts; I believe in the intuition and the treasures of the subconscious…”
The representatives of Svitovyd reproduce the Ukrainian universe in their works. God created this universe. Rich, picturesque, sincere and amazing… It is an eternal and inexhaustible inspiration for creativity.
