Contemporary sacred art gallery «ICONART» represented creative works of young Kyiv artists Olga Kovtun and Andriy Kovalenko by the exhibition «The Vision of the Baroque».
This refined painting absorbed the deep understanding of Western European and Ukrainian Baroque art. Like the artists of the 17th century, Kovtun and Kovalenko are looking for a new, individual understanding of the image, forming it through the prism of traditional iconography. Therefore, we can consider these sacred images as both religious and secular art – presenting the well-known established themes the artists are looking for exceptionally personalized view and emotional experience, which, at the same time, has developed based on a careful study of Baroque art.
Olga Kovtun and Andriy Kovalenko as artists have formed in the studio of the monumental painting and temple culture of the known artist, academician, professor Mykola Storozhenko. Creative work of Kovtun and Kovalenko is best represented in this centre of sacred art of the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture in Kiev.
Following their teacher, young artists consider as the starting point of their own artistic search the art of the Ukrainian Baroque. However, they do not stop at blind copying or reproduction of ancient monuments of art, but extraordinarily interestingly and individually develop this old artistic experience into their own painting, realizing the environment of modern art. However, one should not look at the artists’ works presented at the exhibition merely as an aesthetic whim, a self-contained world; on the contrary this intensive creative search also gives young artists deep spiritual experience.
This spiritual experience, gained in painting, harmoniously combines the female and male principle. The authors of the exhibition acknowledge: «Creating in a pair, holding hands, painted with pigments and stuck up with wet, fragrant, sticky gesso, one feels immense completeness. To create by two principles: male and female, somewhere in one dimension to join the hearts in a single melody, but to keep authorship, distinguishing it by the humble notes of one’s ego.» It is a rare example of art, where one does not inhibit and does not dominate over the other, but on the contrary the artists inspire each other striving for the ideal harmony of beauty.