NADA Villa Warsaw 2024

Voloshyn Gallery presents a solo project of Kateryna Lysovenko at NADA Villa Warsaw!

 

Kateryna Lysovenko constructs her works using a network of ideas, presented with a range of references. The artist addresses classical mythology, tropes and motifs as well as ideologies and contemporary events, along with the ways those are being reflected in images. Often locally touching particular events, drawing a lot from the experience of Ukrainian people, her works tackle key problems of human state and universal issues.

 

As part of NADA Villa Warsaw, Kateryna will present her new project ‘Disagreement’. The histories of nations without imperial past and imperial traditions differ from the histories of empires. For example, in Armenian, Ukrainian, Tatar (and many other) folklore, transformation into a plant, animal, mythical creature, etc. is not dehumanisation, as in imperial myths, but a manifestation of disagreement with violence, loss of loved ones and relatives, and disagreement with the loss.

 

The ability to dream should not be underestimated, according to the artist. The ability to dream is one of the important preconditions for freedom, because you can only do what you can imagine. For Kateryna, folklore, poetry and art are important for the ability to imagine things that are impossible today, thus making them possible tomorrow, as well as the ability to portray the abnormality, inappropriateness and unreality (something that should not happen) of war and violence. Poetry and folklore help us to love even what we lose, to protect the memory of victims, to dream of freedom and peace. In peaceful times, the ability of language to redefine the world makes trees, rivers or anything else a refuge for those who are no longer with us.

 

Our favourite trees and legends are evidence of violence, and nature is a kind of paradise for those for whom reality has left no place. The viburnum is a tree that grew from a girl killed by invaders; there are several other variants of this legend, but the viburnum always grows from the blood of the murdered. Another favourite Ukrainian tree is the weeping willow that symbolizes either the mother of the murdered girl who became a viburnum, or a woman who lost her loved ones and became a weeping tree out of grief.

 

 

About Kateryna Lysovenko

Kateryna Lysovenko (b. 1989, Odesa) is a Ukrainian artist. She studied at the Grekov Odesa Art School, then at the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture, Kyiv. In 2017–2016 she studied contemporary art at Kyiv Academy of Media Arts and in 2019 a course at the Method Fund.

She focuses on the research of power and ideology and the transition from the Soviet to the contemporary. In her artworks, the victim's image often emerges, no matter which topic she chooses — either the dominance of the art academy or right-wing violence, religious oppression, and harassment.

 

Her works have been part of numerous solo and group exhibitions, including ‘Handle With Care’, at Ludwig Museum — Museum of Contemporary Art (2023, Budapest, Hungary); ‘Motherland’. At Museum Ephraim-Palais (2023, Berlin, Germany), 'Kaleidoscope of (Hi)stories. Ukrainian Art 1912–2023’ at SKD, Albertinum (2023, Dresden, Germany), ‘Goodbye, East! Goodbye, Narcissus!’ at Estonian Contemporary Art Museum – EKKM (2023, Tallinn, Estonia) among others. Kateryna Lysovenko's works have been highlighted and reviewed by The New York Times, Financial Times, ArtDaily, e-flux, Vogue Polska, The Village Voice, Monopol Magazin and Blok Magazine.

 

Her works are in public collections, e.g. New Gallery Graz (Graz, Austria), The Museum of Modern Art (Warsaw, Poland), Ludwig Stiftung Foundation (Budapest, Hungary), Odesa National Art Museum (Odesa, Ukraine). She lives and works in Vienna, Austria.