During the Anaphora of the Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom, in response of the priest commemorating saints of the Heavenly Church and living hierarchs of the Earthly Church, community of faithful is concluding his prayer with words: And of All Mankind (in Cyrillic – I Vsich I Vse (of Everyone and Everything). To some extent, self-criticism of the Church is appeared in this expression, because the Church is conscious that the sacrifice of Christ was made not only for the merits of all the saints, but primarily for the redemption of sins of every person.
Exhibition of Andriy Vynnychok is kind of reflection on this theme in painting art. The artist creates an open visual system. He uses for it Christian symbols (Gold, Water, Fish, Ladder), traditional compositional techniques of church iconography (Dream, Three, Cold Water) and Gospel texts (such as the Gospel of St. John), but enriches it with his paint instinct, life experience and faith. This system has no aim to be ideal, it is rather critical, even, self-critical, because it reflects reality of Everyone and Everything that surrounds the artist and presents who is the artist himself, particularly in the last year, very significant and at the same time tragic for Ukrainians.
Ideas of action and dynamics are very important for this group of works. Color and composition of paintings is full of tension, as if we observe a variety of images of struggle, whether internal - with oneself, or external - with others. Figures of the heroes of this struggle have no faces and are not intend to look holy. Rather we can see how intertwined are appearances of personal actions and collective inaction. Against the background of the fight with a dragon, or a decisive step forward into cold water or into the fiery war in the east, a quiet meal at the table is seen as falsehood passivity and gold smiling face appears as just an empty gloss...
Images of the Ladder to the Sky and Dream resonate somehow together and summarize this group of art-works... According to the artist, Dream is among the calmest images he created. It displays rest, tranquility and deep connection with native land... But beyond that, dream or sleep is also the sister of death. And this latter status has become to us very much alive and close in recent months. The Dream-Death returns us to the Eucharistic sacrifice for Everyone and Everything and draws the words of Christ in the Gospel of John: Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
Marichka Tsymbalista
You can visit the exhibition from 21 Оctober to 16 November in the сontemporary sacred art Gallery ICONART at 26 Virmenska Str., Lviv, 79008, Ukraine from 12am - 7 pm every day except Monday.
Andriy Vynnychok was born on February 2, 1967 in Chervonograd town. In 1986 he graduated Lviv State College of Decorative and Applied Art named after Ivan Trush (Painting department). In 1996 he graduated from Lviv National Academy of Arts (Department of monumental painting, workshop of Volodymyr Patyk). He works in monumental and panel painting as well as in Christian iconography. He participated in exhibitions and En plein air activities in Ukraine and abroad.