Natalia Makieyeva’s Filigree Simplicity

Kyiv’s Honchary Gallery opened on June 11 an exposition of paintings and ceramics by Kyiv’s Natalia Makieyeva. It is titled A New Collection and is the result of basic concepts revised. It is really an altogether new collection and its value can hardly be appreciated by one just dropping in.

Her works — be it Artbutan [Flying Buttress], Airplanes, Sharpshooters, Torsos , or Trefoil — reveal the source material precisely the way it is, with no frills. The surface of a brick is cut off with a piano string, meaning it is obtained in a perfectly natural manner.

Objects viewed at a certain angle seem to lose their volume, so one can see just one facet, outwardly flat resembling a sheet of paper. Natalia Makieyeva professes a simple as much as brilliant truth, namely that art is in and around us. Her works on display could well give a fresh creative impetus to interior decorators.

Secreted behind the outward simplicity are filigree techniques made perfect over the years, so that the shape is achieved using the only correct movement of the piano string. “This cannot be understood unless one has worked with clay for many years,” says Natalia. She compares her art to penmanship where a stroke of the pen produces a character of singular beauty, lines of a fleeting moment in the endless run of time.