Traveling through “The Steppe Caprichos”
Renowned Odesa-based artist Volodymyr Kabachenko is holding an exhibition in Kyiv as part of the presentation campaign for artworks nominated for the Shevchenko Prize
The exhibition hall of the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine is hosting a display of three dozen paintings created by Volodymyr Kabachenko over the past few years. The exhibition has brought together artists, critics, journalists, and lovers of contemporary Ukrainian art to try to assess significant creative achievements of the master noted for his distinctive painting style.
The organizers chose the name of the exhibition to intrigue the audience, most of which, probably, benefited from learning the meaning of the word caprichos. Capriccio in Italian, capricho in Spanish, and caprice in French all serve to name a classical music piece which is free in form. Meanwhile, the famous 17th century French writer and lexicographer Antoine Furetiere defined capriccio in his Universal Dictionary (1690) as “a work (belonging to any art form) in which the power of imagination matters more than following the rules of art.”
When looking at Kabachenko’s paintings through the prism of Western art as it was, for example, in the heyday of Italian Baroque, one can discern them having a lot in common with the works of famous artists of the past such as Giorgio Vasari and Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo. By the way, the two painters were the first to use capriccio in Italian as a synonym for unusual and skillful design as well as its implementation.
The audience found the following works to be particularly interesting: Above the Gully, She Who Lights the Stars: Birth of the Ursa Major, And Sent a Garland on the Waters, By the Great Ferry, Bandura Player, Two Magpies, and To the Dead, and the Living. There, the artist creates a cosmogonic myth of his own, featuring the bird woman as the embodiment of ancient religious beliefs about two worlds, the real and the unreal, composes images of wizard Cossacks endowed with mystical power, models spatial travels of his characters who are capable of rising to the heavens in a state of creative ecstasy...
Art critic Olha Tarasenko, a long-term student of Kabachenko’s paintings, believes that his works display poetically elevated perception of nature, ability to reflect the Ukrainian mentality by the means of art, and striving to get into the meaning of human existence.
Another authoritative opinion, expressed by the outstanding drawer and painter Mykola Storozhenko during the presentation of “The Steppe Caprichos,” was as follows: “Kabachenko follows the artistic tradition established by the Odesa school of painting back in the early 20th century. The dream paintings he has put on display here could be created only using the technique pioneered by the famous Spanish artist El Greco. The latter never took to the brush to put something on the canvas as soon as he had an idea. El Greco could think for days or even months about how to implement his ideas in the painting. Only after the idea was definitely finalized, he began to put it on the canvas. Kabachenko adheres to this creative principle, too, and his works impress with their profound metaphoricity and psychological depth of images.”
The Day’s FACT FILE
Volodymyr Kabachenko was born on May 20, 1958 in Mykolaiv. He graduated from the Odesa Grekov State Art College in 1978 and the Mykolaiv Branch of the Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts in 2007, majoring in drawing, design, and teaching of arts. The artist revealed his talent already during his studies at the art college where he studied under the famous painter Filipenko. Kabachenko has been holding exhibitions since 1983. His work organically entered the new era of Ukrainian art and attracted the attention of the Odesa region artistic milieu.
Kabachenko won or took high places at numerous international and national exhibitions. His awards include diploma from the Impreza Biennale of Contemporary Art (1993), honorary diploma from the Kyiv Mohyla Academy (1994), prizes of the mayoral contest “Your Names, Odesa” (2001), international contemporary art exhibition “Salon of Moldova” (2002), and the Kostandi Municipal Prize (2008). Until now, the artist has participated in more than 60 collective art exhibitions and 12 solo ones, while his works are on permanent display at the Odesa Art Museum.
