Voloshyn Gallery is proud to present the works of Ukrainian artists Lesia Khomenko, Nikita Kadan and Mykola Ridnyi at Liste Art Fair.
The group project includes recent works documenting the full-scale war and earlier works that address the geopolitical events slightly preceding the Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea. The artists offer a deep analysis of the meaning, background, and effects of the war.
At this art fair, Nikita Kadan will present new works 'The buliding and the field' series, 'Composition with three legs (after Henryk Streng/Marek Włodarski)', 'The Sun', created during the period of full-scale Russian invasion to Ukraine. The motif of black plowed field relates to the hundreds of photos of dead bodies partly covered by soil, explosion craters made by missiles and bombs, collective graved quickly dig at outskirts of cities and villages - the images which circulate in social media and mass-media of war period. At the same time it is a motif of 'rich Ukrainian soil', crucial both for colonial and nationalist narratives about Ukrainian 'global mission'. The public buildings (theaters, palaces of culture, monuments etc.) of so-called 'Soviet modernism', quotes from paintings of Lviv Jewish/Polish artist Henryk Streng/Marek Włodarski (who changed his name to escape repressions during nazi occupation of Ukraine), and the image of black sun, raising from the soil: all of them are about soil and political history, soil and art history, soil and enlightenment, soil and modernity, soil and idea of national identity, soil and single human being.
Lesia Khomenko presents the work from the Covert Surveillance series. Lesia used photos of soldiers that she stealthily took while stalking them through the window of her studio, which is located near one of the military units. By objectifying soldiers` bodies, Lesia is dehumanizing them and reconsider the role of the artist`s gaze by comparing it to the shooter`s gaze. The artist paints this artwork in several layers: the first layer is an ecorche, then a soldier on the transparent net and then the foliage overlapping soldiers` bodies. This artwork is deconstructing the war by studying the anatomies and literally penetrating the body of the soldier.
Mykola Ridnyi presents the installation Water Wears Away the Stone. The installation, featuring the film and the granite boots, is part of a larger series of works titled Constant Dropping Wears Away the Stone, which was shown for the first time in the exhibition of shortlisted artists for the Pinchuk Art Center Prize. It was created in a year of the Maidan Revolution, as if in anticipation of an impending protest movement. For this film the artist conducted an interview with a former police officer who at some earlier point had decided to leave the police force and now works as a stonemason. Filmed partly in the style of a classic worker portrait documenting daily operations at the stonemason’s workshop, including footage of the serial production of tombstones, Ridnyi disrupts the routine of officer’s workday with a special commission: he asks him to carve a pair of police boots out of granite based on the style of a Soviet monument marking the liberation of the city of Kharkiv in Eastern Ukraine from National Socialist troops.
Max and Julia Voloshyn founded Voloshyn Gallery in October 2016. In 2015, the Voloshyns made it to the Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list. The gallery specializes in contemporary art and showcases a broad range of media in contemporary art, hosting solo and group exhibitions. Voloshyn Gallery is a member of New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) since 2020.