The gallery ICONART presents works of Oleksandr Antoniuk from Khmelnycky. In many his oil paintings Oleksandr considers personal understanding of the biblical texts. The artist tries to avoid the accustomed forms and the iconography of the traditional sacral art.
Certainly, this individual search of the personal visual language requires from Antoniuk to undergo the influences of the artistic forms from the previous centuries. In his paintings one may unexpectedly find the traces of the archaic Greek ceramics or Jewish medieval miniature. Such influences enrich Antoniuk`s works: they present his paintings in different visual levels with their willingness for experiment, readiness for surprise.
The main burden of the exhibition Sacral Botany considers the idea of the lost/found paradise. Its personal attempt to inquire the heavenly symbols: virtues. Like earthly plants they grow slowly; they grow in the amiable environment; they grow and bear fruits. Antoniuk`s botany appears as the investigation of things which are less visible than shape and color: it`s an attempt to find the blessed state of the universal love.
Markiian Filevych