“Ukrainian Motifs” by Anatolii Kryvolap
Mastery of the noted artist on display at Mironova Gallery
The exhibit displays Anatolii Kryvolap’s canvases from the series “Gurzuf,” “The Crimea,” and “The Carpathians,” created in the period from 2007-12. According to the artist, he finished his last work before the launch of the exhibit in September.
The artist needs an active domination of color over the form in order to create accents for mood perception and poetically free statement of a real natural motif. The viewer can make sure that Kryvolap is masterful in the complicated range of color effects and boldly combines shades and undertints. As we feast our eyes upon the landscapes A Night in the Carpathians, The Crimea, A Road to Mukacheve, In the Valley, we feel as if plunging into an ocean of colors, where the horizon is a conditional line and the signs of a concrete locality, which is the main theme of the landscape, are only slightly visible. Here the viewer sees a real apotheosis of color called to become a tuning fork in order to convey all the peculiarities of the natural environment, ranging from the time of The Day to atmospheric phenomena.
In his research of the color spectrum, Kryvolap sets the following aim before him: to depict the world by way of color effects, and according to his own expression, he has created a “structural landscape,” which subordinates the form and all minor elements of the composition to the single power of powerful, somewhat brutal and contrast combinations of color. The music chords of color and play of the facture, and the overall harmony or the canvas allow one to see the original power of nature anew, as if with fresh eyes. Colors in the master’s paintings are aromas of the blossom of the Crimean summer, gleams of twilight in the tints of the sea wave in Aiu-Dag, this is the severity of the forest in The Carpathian Motif, the red-and-orange palette of the sun heading towards the west in Road to Mukacheve, and the moist atmosphere of the misty and snowy Carpathians, depicted on the canvas The Mountain Snow.
As a reminder, Anatolii Kryvolap was the first Ukrainian painter to appear on a cover of the Forbes magazine, in 2011. The artist’s works have twice set the world records of contemporary Ukrainian art’s sales on the international art market. His picture The Steppe was sold at the auction of Phillips de Pury & Co in New York for 98,500 dollars, whereas his work A Horse. Night was sold at Phillips de Pury & Company London for 124,400 dollars.
The exhibit “Ukrainian Motif” will be open at Mironova Gallery till November 17.
