Ironic rebuses

One sees great things at a distance. It’s been almost a year now since Andrii Lipatov passed away.

When my soul is afraid to sing I open the album of Lipatov’s art works and emerge myself into the ironic world of the unpredicted naive. In days of the Orange Revolution Lipatov shifted his feet on the cold square of his native old Elisavetgrad – now Kirovohrad, pouring tea purchased by him personally to people around him and hoping that maybe from now on the state would love him and other artists, poets, musicians, and simply nice talented people, who stand behind the counters at markets and beside blackboards at schools, all of those potential emigrants willing to leave this prosperous, fertile, and melodic country. When things did not turn out the way he hoped he thought: “Not a problem. Maybe next time…” He took his brush and began drawing again.

I met the amazing Ukrainian artist Lipatov in person in 1999, when his solo exhibition was organized at Oleksandr Osmiorkin Art Memorial Museum. What did I know about him then? That he was born in 1960 in Kolomna, Moscow region (Russia) in family of the military officer. Since 1966 he lived in Kirovohrad, Ukraine. In 1980 he graduated from Kirovohrad Institute of Agricultural Engineerig majoring in Mechanical Engineering. After graduation, Lipatov worked as a design engineer at the plant Hidrosyla. Still being a university student he grew fond of caricature and published his works in periodicals. At that time he started painting. Since 1993 Lipatov dedicated himself entirely to his hobby. In 1998 he became a member of the National Union of Folk Art Masters.

Tall, wide-shouldered man with wonderfully bright, clean, and sunny smile stood in front of me. His movements resembled cat walk, when a cat enters home for the first time. “Strange man,” I thought to myself then. He was, in fact, strange as for an artist of our time. He was modest, unpretentious, not very talkative, neat, spoke with dignity and respect to the person he talked to. In short, there was some kind of European intellectual in front of me. Later I found those qualities in his works as well. Paradoxical mix of ironic caricature, folk painting, and animated world view, Nikolai Gogol style and Eastern European aesthetics, such as Ivan Generalic or Ivan Lackowic, created the same impression of playful purity and brightness of sun. This was openness of the classic naive.

Sometimes Lipatov’s compositions burlesque on the outside, but internally estrained, resembled paintings of Kateryna Bilokur, of course, not by manner of painting or the plot, but rather by the desire to cultivate one’s own creative space. Lipatov harmoniously combined artistic and craft skills, general philosophical and personal things. His Ukraine is his City, enriched with literary folklore and with myth-making of the past and present culture of suburbs. His Universe extends from Hryhorii Skovoroda, Fransua Rable, and Wilhelm Hauff to full of ironic, nostalgic note era of mechanics of Maister Korablia (Master of the Ship) by Yurii Yanovsky with striking of the clock on the old town hall and the joys of mankind from first airship flights, rolling of the bike wheels, buzzing of steam turbine…

In his attitude to art softness of the character, kindness of his heart combined with commitment of an artist. In 2002 he became a prize winner of the International Art Competition in Yokohama, Japan, in 2007 – winner of the 12th Salon Diogenes Taborda in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Lipatov took part in the Fourth Biennale of Naive Art in Anders, France (2006), in the Second International Festival of Naive Art Festanaiv in Moscow, Russia (2007), in the Third International Plenair of Naive Art in Humenne, Slovakia (2007), in the Third and the Fourth Festivals of Naive Art Vernet at Arvi, France (2007 and 2008), and in Birmingham Art Fair in Birmingham, Great Britain (2008). His paintings are now kept in museum collections in Oleksandr Osmiorkin Art Memorial Museum (Kirovohrad), in oblast Art Museums of Cherkasy and Kirovohrad, in Museum of Naive Art (Moscow, Russia), in Museum of Naive Art (Bero, France), in Vihorlat Museum (Humenne, Slovakia), in the Cultural Foundation Volpe Stressens (Buenos Aires, Argentina), and in numerous private collections in Russia, the US, Canada, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Baltic countries. However, for Ukraine creative works of this artist are actually Terra Incognita so far, as, by the way, most of the contemporary artists of this trend.

They say that the world of art is intangible. It is not true, because it is even more realistic than life itself! Well, it could seem than there is nothing special in glass jars of pickles, in a kitchen cutting board with two pieces of meat, in bay leaves, pepper box and cloves of garlic, or in high platform shoes, bedside table lamp and DJ stand for plates? But the artist saw an echo of time in those things, he remembered that time and stopped it in space, turning it into a harmonic component of his own world, where sea roars silently and a single wave that was rolling stopped somewhere in the ocean of space with a merry noise, without causing any damage, where rooms are illuminated with blue, yellow, and pink lights, and white lamp shades go down to soft arm chairs and The Beatles music blends up with fragrant breath of just brewed coffee.

Lipatov called his paintings “small pictures.” Perhaps, for him they were only a small expressed part of his great creative life. His paintings for me are like a Hello from childhood, like greeting cards, that stand next to the lights of New Year’s tree decorations, first snow outside the window, first snowdrops, smell of mother’s sweet pie, cherry blossom, with things that we describe with a word “miracle.” His works give rise to the miracle of spiritual joy. He is one of the faithful to life, he argues that it is not something monotone and terrible, like it may appear from TV screens, newspaper pages, unpaid receipts for utilities, and doors of clerks’ offices. “Mafia is immortal” – this slogan sounds ironically and funny in his pictures, he knew that all of us are mortal. Everything comes to an end at some point, only soul is immortal.

Lipatov passed away in the bloom of his talent (he wasn’t yet 49 years old). It happened on January 13, 2010. But he left us a legacy of his works, which are now successfully exhibited in museums. You would want to look at his paintings again and again, study familiar and at the same time unfamiliar faces, look for answers to rebuses of his naive but kind and wise art.

Now the works by the artist can be seen at Vernissage at Kirovohrad Oblast Scientific Library (Department of Art).