Volodymyr Korniev’s one-man show has opened at the Griffin Gallery. The master’s art is actually transferring to canvas the idea of Ukraine in the form of a set of symbols, images, and archetypes, which is made in a clear, well-defined, and even demonstrative way. In other words, Volodymyr Korniev never paints incidental works. Everything is familiar, understandable, and almost predictable: Cossacks, koliada carolers, mallows, sad girls, and wise mothers. Korniev’s very style, based upon studying the early Rus’ artistic traditions, Ukrainian folk arts, and, by all accounts, the Boichuk school of the twenties, seems equally familiar and predictable. However, unlike his spiritual gurus’ bright and saturated colors, the artist prefers a melancholic pallid greenish-brown spectrum. However, melancholy is an utterly national notion and is perhaps untranslatable into other languages.
