Today Ukrainian visual arts are going through rather complicated processes of evaluating the national creative potential, the aims and tasks of artistic development, which is inseparably linked with the political and social changes, and the formation of civic society in our country.
Under these conditions the emergence and existence of an edition like the personified reference album “Artists of Ukraine” seems rather topical. Intended for the vast circles of connoisseurs of visual arts as it is, it plays not only informational and presentative role, but makes it possible to analyze a rather broad spectrum of the creative achievements of contemporary Ukrainian artists.
The Album represents works by professional artists for whom art is not only a mode of life, but the main means of earning their living. It contains works by a great cohort of teachers of special educational institutions, and those who have covered the difficult path of artistic “science” on their own; artists who have been fruitfully cooperating for a long time with prestigious galleries, and representatives of the so-called “people’s salon” of Andiivsky uzviz. The creative work of each of them is an inseparable component of the huge indissoluble layer of contemporary Ukrainian artistic culture.
This is the fourth edition. Each of the books is unique in its own right for it represents more and more new creative names. Turning over the pages of the album we can see the changes that have taken place over the last few years in themes and style palette of Ukrainian visual arts. The artists began to gradually realize the force of their creative power; the notion of artistic quality underwent a change.
Paving the road from pathetic ideological confrontations to competitions on a truly artistic ground,
the artists are persistently searching for new forms of self-expression, not infrequently reinterpreting the attainments of the past. That is why the notes of post-modernism continue to sound clearly in Ukrainian art up to this day.
Impressionistic influences are rather strong, particularly in landscape painting. Enthusiasm for impressionism enables many artists to solve the problem of the correlation between colour and form. Sometimes impressionistic studies acquire analytical character, turning a live colour perception into
a stylistic form.
The traditional realistic picture does not surrender either. Having modernized itself to some extent in the conditions of market relations, and on becoming free from ideological and thematic engagement, it continues to be rather popular, especially in the so-called small genres — landscape, portrait, still-life. Present-day changes in thematic and stylistic palette are linked to a large extent with the commercialization of art, turning the work of art into a commodity available to all. Taking into consideration the demands of a customer the artists diminished the size of their works, giving the subjects more features of commercial character and intimacy. Monumentality and philosophy of the early 1990s gave way to romantic lyricism and, sometimes, to sentimentality.
Stylized decorative paintings have become very popular, more often than not the picture is considered as an adornment, part of a large space, losing the features of all-sufficiency. Artistic searches oriented to outward signs of beauty, aestheticism, exquisite form and plasticity, are moving in the direction of absence of conflict. It can be observed that reality is replaced with literary, mythological, imaginary images. The artists strive for idealizing the environment, space, subject, image…
These tendencies are particularly obvious in sculpture that, in the absence of a big State customer, is actively mastering the minor form. Plasticity and flexibility of form come to the foreground. Sculpture becomes colouful, different materials are often used in combination with one another: metal-stone, metal-wood. Strange to say but even present-day monuments are losing features of monumentality.
Deviation from a great theme, deep philosophic thoughts over the problems of life caused rapid development of “salon art,” which today occupies a special niche in the general artistic space of Ukraine. There has come into being the so-called “office style” in which individual wishes of a customer dominate over artistic likings of an artist. At the same time re-orientation of art to the private customer gave impetus to the development of decorative and applied arts. So, naturally, the album represents masters of ceramics, weaving, batik, clothes modeling, jewelry, embroidery, interior design.
The project “Artists of Ukraine” is a commercial one. So the increasing number of its participants testifies that the artists understand the importance of efficient, purposeful, qualitative artistic advertisement, that the financial possibilities of the development of Ukrainian art have improved,
and that State and public organizations, more and more frequently financial donators of art, become increasingly interested in artistic processes.
It is obvious that the processes that take place today are objective and characteristic of the transitional period in social development. So let us hope that in the future there will appear the features of a new great style. Today a powerful cohort of artists gives much consideration to Ukrainian folk-lore and ethnic motifs, many turn to Ukrainian philosophy and the attainments of ancient culture, particularly those of Trypillia. While in the 1990s this experience was mostly of empiric and emotional character, today it is a purposeful, analytical, in-depth study of Ukrainian culture in the context of the development of art and culture of European nations.
After “centuries of silence” Ukraine is becoming established again as a European state, and Ukrainian artists, realizing their artistic and national identity, come out today as active participants in worldwide artistic processes.
It is only natural that the album is replenished by the names of the artists that are well known in Ukraine and world over. In general the reference album “Artists of Ukraine,” widely covering the creative achievements of representatives of different Ukrainian art schools, regional groups and diaspora, vividly attests the existence of contemporary Ukrainian visual arts of a high quality, which contributes to Ukraine’s organic entry into world cultural space.
A. Khutorianyn

A. Khutorianyn
Art critic

До уваги мистців та мистецьких осередків!
Шановні колеги!
The fourth book “Artists of Ukraine” contains 210 references on creative work and biography and almost 1000 colour plates reproducing works by painters, sculptors, graphic and monumental artists, masters of decorative and applied arts. It represents works by well-known artists, as well as by those who just graduated from an art institution, or began to master the complicated “science” of art on their own.
The publication presents a wide spectrum of contemporary Ukrainian art in a state of its active development.
This richly illustrated reference album is intended for the vast circles of connoisseurs of fine arts.

4rd Issue

author-compiling Serhiy Zhuravel

The fourth book “Artists of Ukraine” contains 210 references on creative work and biography and almost 1000 colour plates reproducing works by painters, sculptors, graphic and monumental artists, masters of decorative and applied arts. It represents works by well-known artists, as well as by those who just graduated from an art institution, or began to master the complicated “science” of art on their own.
The publication presents a wide spectrum of contemporary Ukrainian art in a state of its active development.
This richly illustrated reference album is intended for the vast circles of connoisseurs of fine arts.

3rd Issue

author-compiling Serhiy Zhuravel

This is the third book of the series Artistic Ukraine — Artists of Ukraine — which contains 139 references on creative work and biography and more than 600 colour plates reproducing works by painters, sculptors, graphic artists, monumental artists, masters of decorative and applied art — members of the National Ukrainian Artists’ Union, and individual graduates from art institutions.
It initiates the separate section called Artistic Heritage which represents artists who left works of unsurpassed value after their departure, and which are displayed at museums of art, family and private collections.
This reference album on creative work and biography is intended for the vast circles of connoisseurs of visual arts.