The New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) is the definitive non-profit arts organization dedicated to the cultivation, support, and advancement of new voices in contemporary art. The New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) is pleased to present the 19th edition of NADA Miami, to take place December 1–4, 2021 at Ice Palace Studios.
Voloshyn Gallery is proud to present the works of Ukrainian artists Lesia Khomenko, Maria Sulymenko and Oleksiy Sai at NADA Miami.
Lesia Khomenko presents two works on bi-flex from her Lesia Khomenko and Her School and Several Stories and Objects series. Experimenting with bi-flex and painting, Lesia Khomenko continues her programmatic work on the deconstruction of figurative images and analysis of every element of the painting. Thus, in her series the artist reaches maximum elasticity of canvas by using synthetic canvas, biflex fabric and synthetic acrylics. This allows the artist to transform one of her favourite processes of mounting canvas onto a frame into the main ‘sense creative’ part, since it becomes an instrument in deformation of depicted figures.For the series Lesia Khomenko and Her School, the artist works from photographs that were sent by her students in response to her request. In the process, Khomenko explores her own identity and, by extension, the identity of young artists. In her Several Stories and Objects project, the artist uses stretchers, objects, canvases, bi-flex and netting to literally divide the background” from the paintings’ characters, as well as to offer an ironic statement regarding the classical painterly technique of glazing.
Another work belongs to Lesia Khomenko’s earlier series, Personal Vocation. The term “affined work” was coined by the idealist philosopher Hryhorii Skovoroda, who believed that each individual has an affinity for toil of a certain kind, and happiness lies in finding the work for which one has a natural affinity. Lesia gives the term new relevance by trying to introduce it to the field of critical discourse and juxtaposing it to Marx’s still relevant notion of alienated work. The figures of workers are inscribed into the canvases in a way that leaves the impression that the paintings are “too small” for them. Their legs rest on the paintings’ edge while their heads are squeezed into a corner; sometimes they don’t even fit into the painting. This formal method is a metaphor for the social and economic conditions that the workers currently face. The base in soft colors serves as the background for these figures. For Lesia, these neutral colors of “cutting-edge interior design” are a symbol of the illusory happiness and material wellbeing. The juxtaposition of these colors and the “squeezed-in” workers lends the paintings dramatic tension.
Lesia Khomenko was born in 1980 in Kyiv, where she lives and works now. She graduated from the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture in 2004. In 2005-2006 she took part in the residence of the Center for Contemporary Art at NaUKMA; in 2008 - at the LIA residence (Leipzig InternationalArt program) in Leipzig, Germany. Since 2004 she has been a co-founder and memberof the REP group, and since 2008 of the HUDRADA curatorial association.Her works have been exhibited in many solo and group exhibitions, including the main project of the Kyiv Biennale Arsenale in 2012, as well as exhibitionsat the National Art Museum of Ukraine, New York's White Box gallery, Vienna's MUMOK, and Zaheta gallery in Warsaw. Lesia Khomenko is a nominee for the PinchukArtCentre Prize in 2009, 2011, and 2013 and the Future generation art prize as part of the R.E.P. in 2012, founded by Victor Pinchuk, as well as the winner of the Kazimir Malevich Prize in 2012 and 2016.
Maria Sulymenko presents her works from the Glass World of People and Things...project. The artist explains that she didn’t set herself any goals and didn’t come up with a concept when working on the series: her works reflect not only what she has seen, but also the way she sees it. She wants to convey the atmosphere first and foremost. “I always loved office spaces, their weirdness, mysteriousness and emptiness, their rituals and hierarchies. What’s going on there? What do people do in there? They might be procrastinating, or they might be developing their plans for world domination. I have this reverence for my characters: while they are not based on concrete people and are rather impersonal, I like to believe that they have their own lives outside the picture,” Maria Sulymenko explains. The characters of Maria’s drawings exist outside any concrete era and are placed in a generic, sometimes naively conveyed environment that alludes to our subconscious rather than to our reality. And there’s something quite existential about this atmosphere of absurdity.
Maria Sulymenko was born in 1981 in Kyiv, Ukraine, in an artists’ family. She graduated from the Arts school named after Taras Shevchenko. Thereafter she went on to get a higher education in Germany. Maria entered the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart (Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Stuttgart), where she studied sculpture and painting. Then she entered the Higher school of Fine Arts in the city of Offenbach (Hochschule für Gestaltung in Offenbach am Main), where she studied graphic design. Her lecturers were the prominent ATAK (Georg Barber) and Eike König. It was in Germany, where Maria’s personal style was developed. She creates large paintings on paper and canvas. Currently the artist lives and works in Fridingen an der Donau and Berlin.
Founded in October 2016 by Max and Julia Voloshyn, Voloshyn Gallery specializes in contemporary art. It showcases a broad range of media in contemporary art, hosting solo and group exhibitions and participating in leading contemporary art fairs. In 2015, the Voloshyns made it to the Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list. Voloshyn Gallery is a member of The New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA). Voloshyn Gallery fosters the integration of Ukrainian art into global cultural processes. It presents an exciting and diverse exhibition programme, as well as working in partnership with institutions, independent curators in realising both on and off-site projects.
Voloshyn Gallery participates in leading contemporary art fairs. Over the course of the last two years, the gallery has participated in The Armory Show, Vienna Contemporary, Dallas Art Fair, Pulse Art Fair, Nada Miami, UntitledArt, and ExpoChicago. Zhanna Kadyrova's solo presentation from Voloshyn Gallery was awarded the Pulse Prize (2018) at the Pulse Art Fair. The project was also noted by the curators of the Perez Art Museum Miami.