“In colors of a rainbow”

Exhibition in bright summer spirit richly adorned the walls of the art gallery “Art-Mix.” Paintings of the two artists completely different in technique, plot, and materials are united by the emotional fusion with folk art. Each in their own way – one in a concise and monochrome manner, the other in all details and many shades, use and interpret folk traditions of decorative art, recreating the world as seen by the eye of the artist.

Liudmyla Turkevych, who studied at the Kyiv College of Industrial Art in Art Studio of Vasyl Zabashta, has an experience of working in souvenirs factory and as a book illustrator, was also the art director of TV programs, and in recent years has caused great admiration for her new author’s technique. Stroke of her delicate brush is so small and when you look at it close such painstaking work over every detail of the painting strikes you, that’s what creates the magical world, when with each step you get a more clear and distinct idea of the plot. She combined folklore, mysticism, religious motifs, and dreams. Her living brush stroke vibrates, pulsates, interpreting something the artist saw once or made up in her amazing paintings…

The current exhibition is a mixture of various thematic periods, almost all of which ended with solo exhibitions in prestigious galleries in Kyiv, and, at the same time, an announcement of a new series that already emerges in the creative imagination of the artist.

Art critics call Bohdan Zadorozhny – son of a renowned artist Ivan-Valentyn Zadorozhny, “a prominent representative of decorative abstractionism,” indicating that the presence of decorative elements and Ukrainian ethnic motifs in the paintings of the artist bring him in line with such artists as Oleksandr Bohomazov, Mykhailo Boichuk, and Maria Prymachenko. We must also add that Zadorozhny Sr. was one of the greatest followers of “Boichukivshchyna,” that is, schematically speaking, of the art movement that refused to make a decorated copy of reality, inherent in socialist realism, that chose two dimensional and schematic imaging, artistic sketchiness without sharp deformation of shapes and proportions, which, in their turn, characterize icon painting, stained glass technique. Bohdan Zadorozhny’s father was his first teacher and guide. But still, rebounding from the baseline direction, Zadorozhny Jr. found his own way. He distributed the chosen and approved before him technique for diverse range of plots, and sometimes to images with seemingly no plot, when it comes to pure abstraction as an expression of one’s own mythology. His landscapes fascinate viewers with their simplicity and clarity, as if they see it through narrowed eyes or from the bird’s-eye view, then closer and extracted without any unnecessary nuances. Zadorozhny’s still lifes are in tune with ceramics paintings, vytynankas, while others look like “orderly” chaos that can be found on one’s table when a person is not expecting guests. Such artistic surprises make his works appealing, relaxed, and eloquent.

Most importantly from the technical perspective for the artist himself is the work with color, which becomes meaningful after thoughtful research. In the most emotional works we can even see the drama of color: Spring is like an explosion of colors after gray-black-and-white winter, like a response of one’s consciousness to what everyone sees in their own way. Zadorozhny delicately monitors the vibration of color, choosing the range for a chosen scene – sunlight or twilight, explores the possibilities of transferring the mood according to warmness or coldness and the depth of tone.