olha pryymak

There is one city in Ukraine where I love going back above all- the city of Lviv.  Spent a lovely week there just now, charged with new impressions and desire to paint more of it (e.g. continue my baloons series). Here are the skies above the Rynok square rooftops.

Saw this moving hay stack on the road home. Took me right back to the good childhood memories. The guy on top of the stack was looking really comfortable.

I’ve been in Ukraine for the past two weeks therefore the derth of posts here. As the road run parallel the train tracks, the locomotive  in the picture has taken us over, while we were driving along in a car; although normally the same trip by train we did by bar takes two and a half times longer normally. One of the local mysteries.

Yesterday I was at to the Varnishing Day at the Royal Academy Summer Show – to photograph my  year’s participating painting, as I forgot to do that before submitting so I could share it here. Too bad the photo did not come out well, so I am giving here a pic of the smaller study for it. If you are at the Show, come check it out – number 892 around the corner from the fabulous Architecture room.

Big thank you  to Mick Pedroli,  for making my painting RA – worthy, as well as David Milne,  at the Dennis Severs’ House – for opening me the doors of the House. This lead to a series of several dozen other paintings I’ve done in the past year.

In today’s picture, we are trying to get into one of the hidden hallways that are decked out in beautiful antique stained-glass windows, just a code lock in our way.

First of many pictures I will be posting in the next couple of weeks on the subject of colorful balloons in the lovely city of Lviv.

While on the case of the beekeeping I have come across a much more personal story back in Ukraine. This gentleman from Lutsk takes care about over 20-30 colonies of bees and does carpentering, producing magnificent beehives by hand. He has lost his legs in a train accident in not such distant past. Now lives in a hut full of beekeeping paraphernalia and the workshop next door with his dog and three puppies under the bed. The conditions are very simple yet the conversation carried on strikingly intelligent, on the topics of design and medicine.  Amazing how the noble occupation of beekeeping helps transcend one’s conditions in life.

Here is the second of three paintings I’ve made while in Ukraine this Easter. Here the beekeeper (my dad actually) is going in to see how the colonies fared during the winter. The moment of truth: he will now find out whether his colony has survived the winter. When it did not, unfortunately it is usually for many other reasons rather then the cold temperatures. Lots of bees, and incests too to this account, die of disease,  particularly a lot from little known Colony Collapse Disorder. There is no known treatment for it yet. After the day’s inspection though, it looked like our bees did fairy fine this winter, phew.

I am finally back from my two-week break, wonderfully spent in the West of Ukraine. In between enjoying the traditional Easter celebrations and spending time with friends, I’ve collected a mass of material for new work, related to my trip, but not only.

Today’s painting is of the bee farm my father keeps. The change of season happens in Ukraine a few weeks later then in the UK, so the mood of the picture is still solemn, grayish; bees just come out of the hibernation for the first time this spring. More about them in the next few days.

Trying to make the best of the situation, I took a day trip to Lviv to go on my usual gallery run. Thanks to a help from  dear friend, I was pleasantly surprised to find two new galleries offering superb content.  Marta Hrytsyk’s Vitamins show at LvivArt was my absolute favoarite. Meanwhile I run out of my hardboard to paint on and experimenting with new materials: copper plated board.

6×6 in, oil on copper plated panel, 2010, for sale on Etsy

I’ve got two new small paintings to share with you: a still life of caviar sandwich (typical fare) and black tea in a traditional Eastern European (not just Ukrainian because Russians use it too) glass holder. I’ve painted this combo repeatedly because it brings such strong association with short cold days of visiting back home, or taking a trip on a train around the country (see thumbnails below for older paintings).

Besides the new still life, I am updating my olechkodotorg Etsy shop with oldish London 6×6 paintings that came back from the exhibit today.

oil on panel, 15x15cm, 2009, on Etsy