This female artist was born in Lviv and studied in Odesa and Kharkiv; taught in Poltava, then moved to Kyiv. She has had several personal exhibitions, but Kyiv sees her graphic works — pastels and etchings — for the first time.
Tetiana Kusailo’s graphic works are bitter, penetrating, and unfeminine. Even the simplest, most lyrical themes become painful accounts, shrill cries for mercy, albeit always mute, and addressing no one in particular. The artist is far from accusing or exposing anyone or anything, just as she will never lecture anyone. Something testifies in her favor, of course (e.g., Nude, Horoscope). Characteristically, she chooses authors to illustrate (Platonov, Apollinare, Lorca) primarily to build her own order of association. Add here Maeterlinck (e.g., The Blind, The Unwelcome Guest). Here, too, Tetiana Kusailo finds a motif not for subtle symbolic stylization, but for a severe, almost feverish vision. Even in the operas Rigoletto and Snow Maiden, inspiring her etchings, she lays bare passions that are anything but operatic.
