On the occasion of the All-Ukrainian Day of Culture and Amateur Art, the National Parliamentary Library of Ukraine opened the exhibition “The Florist’s Art — the Triumph of Nature.”
The florists Vasyl and Zinaida Boldarev displayed filigree pictures, including portraits, landscapes, and flowers. From afar, the pictures look as though they are executed by graphic design techniques. In fact, they are made by gluing common poplar fluff to a black background. Besides the “fluff pictures,” there are interesting landscapes made of straw and delicate bouquets of dried flowers.
Two other artists, Olena and Karolina Zhuravska, also practice quite an unusual art. They make pictures out of fish bones, teeth, and gills out of which they create extremely delicate and dainty compositions, such as flowers, bouquets, unusual ornaments, and landscapes. The tiny white bones look like precious pearls against the black background.
As Karolina Zhuravska told The Day, it is a painstaking effort to create such a “jewel of a masterpiece.” “First, you have boil the bones thoroughly, then brush them, and coat them with mother-of-pearl varnish, and only after that you can begin the purely creative and most pleasant process of turning a heap of ordinary fish bones into a composition,” she says. The bones are stuck to a black background with glue, and they are now pieces of art, not just bones.
All the participants in the show are members of the Nature and Creativity Club founded and run by Zinaida Boldyreva, which is located at the House of Veterans. Nearly all the forty or so members of the club are pensioners, who practice art in their spare time. It is a group of like-minded people, who are able to see beauty in commonplace things and are endowed with a talent for putting this beauty across to others. If you come to see the exhibit “The Florist’s Art - the Triumph of Nature,” you will find yourselves in a fantastic world. The exhibit ends on March 29.
