Friends! On June 19, at 4:00 p.m., the museum opened an exhibition of icons on boxes from the arms of Kyiv artists Sonya Atlantova and Oleksandr Klymenko.
The new exhibition project is dedicated to the theme of Paradise and the memory of Kateryna Bilokur. In the series of works of 14 icons, which will be exhibited at the exhibition, there is an attempt of a kind of dialogue with the creative heritage of the outstanding artist. The space of the classical icon is filled with flowers (which is a core image in K. Bilokur’s work) as a symbolic embodiment of paradise. Kateryna Bilokur’s Paradise receives new semantic loads (especially theological ones) and becomes the main antithesis of war and death. The space of paradise is interpreted as a space of freedom and happiness, as what Ukrainians are fighting for, and as the end point of our journey. In this way, after the victory over the enemy, peaceful Ukraine becomes a kind of icon of paradise…
In the exposition of the exhibition, the icons will organically resonate with the original works of Kateryna Bilokur from the collection of the National Museum of Decorative Arts of Ukraine: “Flowers and Viburnum (Dahlias)” (1940), “Field Flowers” (1941), “Buyna” (1944–1947 yr.).
ICONS ON BOXES FROM UNDER WEAPONS is an art project by Sonya Atlantova and Oleksandr Klymenko, the main idea of which is the transformation of death (symbolized by a box of weapons) into life (which is traditionally represented by an icon in Ukrainian culture).
The boxes on which the icons are written were brought from the war zone. That is why the icons made on their fragments are silent but eloquent witnesses of this war.
SONYA ATLANTOVA – artist, writer. Works in the field of monumental and easel painting, book graphics, installation, participates in a number of exhibitions in Ukraine and abroad.
OLEKSANDR KLYMENKO is an artist, art critic, writer (under the pseudonym Olaf Klemensen), a member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine. Works in the field of easel and monumental painting. Participant of exhibitions in Ukraine and abroad, organizer of literary and artistic actions and performances. Author of a number of art history articles and books of prose and poetry.
The exhibition will last until July 31, 2024.
