Ukrainian artists reflect on Russia’s war at Expo Chicago

Because the starting of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Max and Julia Voloshyn, the husband-and-wife co-founders of Kyiv’s Voloshyn Gallery, have been working tirelessly in exile and taking part in festivals all through Europe and the US. This month, along with displaying at Artwork Brussels (20-23 April), they are going to be presenting works by two Ukrainian artists on their stand at Expo Chicago. “We should proceed our work,” the sellers say. “The artwork scene is one other entrance on which we’re combating.”

At Expo, the Voloshyns will current works by the conceptual artist Mykola Ridnyi and the painter Oleksiy Sai that mirror the trauma of Russia’s invasion in very alternative ways. The concrete sculptures in Ridnyi’s Shelter collection (2012-13) are based mostly on the shapes of Soviet-era bomb shelters discovered all through Ukraine, which have been deserted or repurposed within the years after the top of the Chilly Struggle, solely for use once more after Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014 and once more since final 12 months’s invasion. Sai’s Bombed collection (2020), in the meantime, consists of earlier canvases that the artist scrubs, sands and drills holes into, turning them into summary compositions that resemble aerial views of crater-scored landscapes criss-crossed by trenches.

Along with their worldwide honest itinerary, the Voloshyns are additionally reopening their area in Kyiv after closing it on the onset of the invasion. “That is our contribution not solely to the way forward for the tradition of unbiased Ukraine, but in addition a major contribution to the victory itself,” the sellers say. “We have to work for our individuals.”

Ridnyi and Sai’s works are more likely to discover a receptive viewers in Chicago: greater than 50,000 individuals within the metropolis declare Ukrainian heritage, giving it the second-largest focus of Ukrainian Individuals after New York. Additionally it is dwelling to the Ukrainian Nationwide Museum and the Ukrainian Institute of Trendy Artwork, each positioned within the Ukrainian Village neighbourhood, making it a hub for Ukrainian cultural exercise.