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The Caprices of Svitlana Karunska

CAPRICE II

Prominent Kyiv-based sculptor Svitlana Karunska has put on two personal exhibitions — practically one after the other: My Own Room, held at Mykola’s House, was followed by Capriccio Misterioso at the Irena Art Gallery. The name of the latter exhibition can be loosely translated as mysterious caprices.

Capriccio Misterioso is, above all, the masterpiece of an immaculately built, integral, and elegant exposition. Chimeras, the artist’s beloved cockleshell-dwelling creatures, are also present, this time somewhat in the background. The bulk of the exhibition is represented by bronze-made Plants and the Wonderful Garden graphic series. The latter is complemented with various pictures on the same subject painted over the gallery’s windows on semi-transparent paper which plays the role of stained glass.

Svitlana Karunska’s sculptural and graphic flora consists of strange, refined, frail, prickly, and, at the same time, absolutely defenseless creatures which perhaps resemble aliens or, at least, somebody inhabiting the ocean bed. They can also call up other associations: with Arabic art or, especially the graphics, with Cretan and early Greek (Homeric epoch) ceramics painted over with flowers looking like figures or figures looking like flowers.

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