1 year ago 🇷🇺 blew the Kakhovka dam. The beautiful house of artist Polina Raiko (died 2004) at occupied Oleshky (Khersonska oblast) was flooded and unique mosaics were ruined. The artist painted her whole house at the age of 69. 🧵
At first, it was a modest decoration of her property: she painted a white dove on the gate. A few years later, however, she expanded her work by painting her house, summer kitchen, fences, garage, and the graves of her relatives in the cemetery.
By the time she started painting, her daughter and husband had died, and her son was in prison. She used art as a fictional world to escape her difficult and unhappy life. She created her bizarre universe of angels, animals, portraits of her family, and Soviet symbols.
Oleshky is still occupied, making it impossible to access the works to evaluate the losses or the possibility of restoration. The founder of the Polina Raiko Art Heritage Foundation, Viacheslav Mashnytskyi, went missing during the occupation of Kherson. His fate is still unknown.
What is often called "Polina Raiko’s owls" are actually tigers from Soviet carpets. It's trendy image now – you can even buy silk pocket square handkerchief that wears Eva Green. It's collaboration between OLIZ brand and @U24_gov_ua for rebuilding 🇺🇦 oliz.com.ua/en/shop/kollek…
I believe that we can preserve memories and spread knowledge about Polina Raiko. We should spread the beauty despite the tragedy, as her whole life. For example, add her art to your home – grono.shop/eng/shop/na-st…
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The last article from the project "5 Minutes for Ukrainian Art" is about Womenhood in 🇺🇦art. Special for you – more artworks and stories about Oleksandra Exter and women artists from the Skoptsy village, thread 🧵
Many Ukrainian embroiderers have remained anonymous in Ukrainian art history. Not much is known about the craftswomen from the village of Veselynivka (formerly Skoptsi), yet they found themselves in the spotlight at the beginning of the turbulent twentieth century.
Acclaimed avant-garde artists such as Oleksandra Ekster, Kazymyr Malevych, Nadiia Henke-Meller were working together with peasants. The artists created sketches and the peasant women embroidered them. The avant-garde artists learned from them about color and harmony of forms.
Today is a small thread about the great artist Liudmyla Semykina (1924-2021). I think I've never posted here any of her works. She was part of the Sixties movement and a friend of Alla Horska, Victor Zaretskyi, and Liubov Panchenko.
She was born in 1924 in Odesa. Her father held a high position in the local organization of the Communist Party, but refused to participate in the organization of the artificial famine, the Holodomor, and in 1932 he left the party. Then he worked as a carpenter.
In the early 1960s, she worked in paintings and participated with Alla Horska in creating the Creative Youth Club. With Horska expelled from the Union of Artists because of this artwork, Shevchenko here was considered a "nationalistic"
Every day there are new tragedies in Ukraine. Today again Kharkiv, again a big shop with hundreds of people inside. The central park. I love Kharkiv so much. This is my favorite 🇺🇦city. But also I'm so mad at X. And here is why.
So last year as you remember r**sians blew up Kakhovka dam and M*sk bought Twitter. 🇺🇦 accounts were shadowed, we lost subscribers, and posts about Kakhovka were shadowed. It was only beginning. Since last autumn I've blocked so many bots (more than 2k) and now it's crazy again.
I also compared how many impressions I had last year before summer and this year. Last year I had 20k subscribers. Now I have 35k, but I don't have more than 2k "likes". Sounds crazy why do I care, but it's about how you see what's going on in Ukraine.
Today is the birthday of an amazing 🇺🇦 artist Oleksandra Exter (1882-1949). But many famous museums where her works are, still consider her russіаn. 🧵A thread about her life and art, please do share it, and don't forget to write to the museums.
Exter was born in Bialystok, Poland, in a Jewish family. When she was three years old, the family moved to Kyiv. Here she received an art education. She studied at the drawing school with Oleksandr Bogomazov, Oleksandr Arkhipenko, Aristarkh Lentulov, Yevhenia Prybylska.
Oleksandra early marries a Kyiv lawyer. They travel together in Europe, including Paris. There she meets Pablo Picasso. She is impressed by the form, but the dark colors of the European modernists are strange to her.
115 years ago Maria Prymachenko was born. Truly a genius of Ukrainian art. You've probably seen her artwork. But let's talk about some myths about Prymachenko and why they are untrue. A thread 🧵
"Our army, our defenders", 1978
❌She was uneducated and had no art education ✅ She studied for four years in the school, which was typical for peasants. She had no academic art education, but her mum taught her embroidery and 🇺🇦 traditional art. In Kyiv she graduated from Masters of Folk Art School.
❌She painted only naive animals and flowers. ✅ Her works were about different topics – the trauma of war, the cold war and nuclear terror, the Chornobyl catastrophe, alcohol addiction, Ukrainian songs, etc.
"May be cursed nuclear war", 1989
Today is the Day of commemoration of participants in the liquidation of the consequences of the Chornobyl catastrophe. As you know my main research is the Image of Chornobyl catastrophe in Ukrainian art. And here is a thread with some works.
4th Block by Maria Prymachenko
The heroism of the liquidators was one of the allowed topics in the Soviet period. It was not possible to officially talk about the consequences or the loss of the home. But also only a few photographers could work there. Here is Yurii Kosyn
Artists who were in the Exclusion Zone during the worst period after the explosion were Oleg Veklenko, Dmytro Hahurnyi, and Petro Yemets among others. See the artworks of Dmytro Nahurnyi