The constant, or non-varying value, that is how three artists from Lviv, Hanna Drul, Iryna Marko, and Oksana Andrushchenko, defined the theme of their joint exhibition. Their constant is Love, that unconditional love that is God, Universe, World, and everything in the world; the love that starts and supports all being, sense, and harmony.
For Hanna Drul the symbol of unconditional love is a woman with a child – a universal archetype of all ages and peoples – Foremother, Madonna, Keeper of the Hearth. Adapting the images from old photos into clay, Hanna is demanding and laconic in her detail. All she needs is one expressive and at the same time most natural gesture to bring the emotion to life, reveal psychological, biological, and genetic connection, create an impulse, turning figurative image into a three-dimensional sign, ‘the formula of ideal love’. Plasticity of Woman-Madonna of Hanna Drul carry expressive monumentality, whose esthetics is associated with lapidary works of Proto-Renaissance and Cubism. “Unconditional love is everywhere, – explains Hanna – You just have to feel it. There is a great need for this unconditional love in today’s society. I’m trying to convey it…”
The source of inspiration for ceramic works of Iryna Marko are folk icons: on glass, canvass, wood, embroidered, carved, generously decorated with flowers, filled with that naïve faith and respectful effort in working out every little detail, and, of course, with its colorfully-emotional, resonant element of color. “God is where love is.” – that is how Iryna signs her works. Artful combination of ‘archaically’-simplistic manner and expressionist coloring embodied in half-sacred and half-fairy-tale plots imbue author-created images with evocative intonation of ‘self’, ‘familiar’, ‘warm’, something that is able to protect and comfort…
Reserved compositions of Oksana Andrushchenko – in grey and white, with small accents of red – masterfully reflect a stern archaic nature of the region – the Carpathian mountains with their precise geometric embellishments of ancient symbolism seen on everyday artifacts, such as beds, trunks, decorated eggs (pysanki)… Even though glass is a cold and detached material, Oksana is able to breathe life into her images of angels and saints that remind us of icons and sacramentals that accompanied dwellers of Gutsul and Pokuttia Regions from birth to death. Among all of these traditional and moving plots with horses and sleighs, St. Nicholas and Barbara, etc., a Solemn Angel still reminds us that the Carpathian Mountains is the region where you do not need a time machine to travel back in time.
Art Historian Natalia Kosmolinska
Translated by Kateryna Kent