There is something mystical about the AVS-Art Gallery, located in a small cozy basement by the entrance to the legendary One Street Museum, currently hosting an exhibit entitled “Koliorovy Vertep” (The Colored Puppet Show Booth) by Olha Petrova, one of the noted Kyiv artists.
Olha Petrova is known far beyond the borders of Ukraine. She appears to have as many talents as Shiva does hands; she is an artist, critic, teacher, and philosopher. Her creative legacy boasts a great many books, masterfully written articles on contemporary art, and regular exhibits in Ukraine and abroad. She willingly shares her rich experience of trips to Japan, Georgia, Spain, Israel, France, and she is especially proud of her roses at the dacha.
There was a period during which she severed contact with the admirers of her talent, for reasons beyond her control, but even then she wrote an excellent book entitled The Third Eye.
HARLEQUIN IN LOVE, 2016 / Illustration from Olha PETROVA’s archive
The “Colored Puppet Show Booth” is further proof of Petrova’s thriving talent, fruit of philosophical reflection on life.
Riot of color is her style, it fills the viewer with incredibly positive emotions and belief in life no matter what. And the masks of Harlequin, one of the most optimistic characters of commedia dell’arte, seem a natural complement. They are merry, sad, love-stricken, skeptical. They inspire philosophical thought. These many-faced buffoons are incredibly radiant and in each canvas this radiance seems even stronger, reminding one of characters produced by Fellini and Chaplin, sorrowful Vertinsky, and Picasso’s circus parade.
“Olha Petrova is a living collage, she is emotionally intuitive, yet rationally and critically self-analytical. She is an artist with a surgeon’s eyes. Her creative world is elevated and pure, she plays with her buffoons, it is a game of life, a trans-avant-garde mix of form and gestalt quote,” says the philosopher, Dr. Volodymyr Lychkovakh.
Ihor Diachenko wrote in 2002: “Olha Petrova’s continuous quest, that permanent movement of life and creative work allow me to say here and now that after her SUMMER will come her SPRING.”
Olha Petrova’s art exhibit will be on until April 9 in Kyiv.
