olechko

2008 oil on gessoed board 15×15 cm

Please email me your bid (starting at $75) if you’d like to own this piece.

Kyiv 2008 oil on gessoed board 15×15 cm

Please email me your bid (starting at $75) if you’d like to own this piece.

She looked really cold, wayting for her ride; in some ways still maintainting her Kyiv glamour.

2008 oil on gessoed board 15×15 cm

Please email me your bid (starting at $75) if you’d like to own this piece.

I noticed in my progress the Ukrainian orthodox theme repeating over and over. I like the traditional ceremony, decor and dress. besides my parents are great appreciators for going to church (not as much for worshiping as for admiring the festivities, architecture and company of others at church).  In fact this instance happened during the Honey Spasa festival when the priest blessed the first crops of my dad’s honey and the jar of honey wine you see at front here.

This painting is part of my post-Soviet series. Please send your bid by email if you want to purchase it.

15×15 cm, oil on board, 2008, nfs

I was fascinated withBbabylegs product for a while, but realized the winter will be over by the time I get them ordered from the States so I went off improvising.  Roma ended up with a pair of my toe knee socks on, looking quite disheveled and terribly funny. I wonder what he’ll have to say about this number when he grows up, hm…

Everybody in expat community knowns of Inna Panteleymonova art

My current inspiration comes from Caro Niederer’s landscapes that she presents in the context of her living environment.

Oxana Mas is one hot selling pancake in the US art market, a creative young Ukrainian artist, some describe her art more as interior design, but it totally fits my “living with your art” concept.

And finally take a look at the new work by Jeremy Lipking.

Oleksandr Kovalchuk at Central House of Artists

Valentyna Telychko at Central House of Artists

Volodymyr Podlevskyi at Central House of Artists

Temo Svirely, image from http://www.svirely.com

Illya Isupov (currently at Zeh)

Pikul, currently at Zeh

I forgot the name of this artist, also at Zeh

It got warm enough to go outside today for a quick sketch directly in oil. The result is pretty shaky (still just 4C above zero here). It’s my parents’ back yard - complete with nationalistically painted bee hives and the power plant at the back - yuck. It’s environmentally clean, and papa gets organically certified honey from these bees, if you can believe it.

15×15 cm, oil on board, 2008, nfs

Discovered a fantastic set of Soviet posters on women’s theme on artpages .

We visited three different monasteries in Volyn region today.

The roads leading to the places are bad, lack signs and general depressive ruin of the countryside surrounds everything. Preferred means of transport there are horse-driven carriages. During the summer nature hides all this in much more attractive greenery.

Derman’ dates back XV-XVII century and hosts a lovely woman’s monastery, two churches, a holy well, with ancient row and mot around it. Besides the monastery, an old school, that produced Ulas Samchuk- renowned writer and journalist.

Horodok outside of Rivne sits on an island, old Ukrainian baroque church dates back 1740. The new monastery cathedral has fantastic new wooden decor inside and the warm” church” has a great private feel to it.

Biliv is the youngest women’s monastery of the three, from 1972, owns a fantastic wooden church, and is the hardest to get to.

On the way back we ate at an established inn called Sophia, outside of Rivne. The kinds of place where the local newlyweds come for their photo shoots complete with pretty exotic garden, tennis courts, hotel, solid restaurant and even a recently added live music venue.

oil on canvas board; 18×24 cm, 2008, private collection

This lady along with many others commute up to Kyiv to sell what her garden produced during the summer for some extra cash. Usually this produce is the freshest and best quality in the market, but one needs to spend more time finding the right “babushka” with the necessary stuff. The kiosks that I’ve been dwelling on recently are an easier target to find (and paint, xo).

Great news, beautiful MindtheGap and LittleMissMoi are taking in their hands the organization of my exhibit at the end of March! Updates are coming soon.

Another interesting artist Alika Cooper is putting out figurative paintings of mobile homes and American devoshkas.

Did I talk enough here about Yuri Solomko? He represented Ukraine at Venice biennale and is most famous for his paintings on maps. Yet have to go see what he came up with for the decoration of the new Hyatt hotel in Kyiv. I hear he put out by himself hundreds of paintings to decorate each and every room in the hotel.

A great mind behind the Global Tree has mentioned my blog in her/his Kyiv, Ukraine posting. I am way over my head about their concept to promote environmental sustainability though color associations. I will repost the Kyiv bit here with the author’s permission:

Contemporary Ukrainian Culture and Art
Ukrainian Music
Ecological project “Torba - prirodi (Bag for the Nature)”

The last project mentioned by Global Tree above is run by a Ukrainian indie band Kryhitka Zahes, that I recently blogged about.  A girl sitting nest to me at  their recent concert in Lviv got one of those torba-s, and it looked really cool from close-up.