The world of childhood and fairy tales
Olha Kvasha has presented in Kyiv paintings she created over the past decade
The exhibition “Painting. Illustration” has gone on display at the Museum of Book and Book Printing of Ukraine. It includes beautiful illustrations to Roman Skyba’s A Slice for Everyone (2007), Blaise Cendrars’ Little Black Stories for Little White Children (Ukrainian translation 2007), The Christmas Dawn (collected by Maria Horbal, 2007), Yevhen Hutsalo’s Hares Cooking Borscht in the Fields (2014), and Oleh Zhovtanetsky’s Lamb’s Meadow Dream (2014).
The works on display were created over the 2004-14 period, enabling the viewer to follow the master’s original technique and literary preferences changing.
Kvasha was born in Lutsk in 1976, graduated from Lviv Academy of Arts, is now actively collaborating with several publishing houses and galleries, living and working in Lviv. Her paintings are appreciated not only in Ukraine, but also in Japan, Brazil, the US, the UK, France and other countries.
“The modern artist must know history well, not only the chronology of events, but the very essence of the entire culture of our people. This is important to be able to pass independent judgment,” Kvasha said. “Only knowing achievements of many generations of our predecessors will allow us, the artists, to give high-quality, modern and non-superficial in its approaches creative product.”
On entering the exhibition, visitors find themselves in a fairy-tale paradise, where transparent shrubs with their elegant lace of leaves and colors rustle under skies colored with the most delicate shades. Kvasha’s paintings open a wide gate to the world of poetry and exquisite taste, while her book illustrations are filled with confidence and kindness as well as a unique style of design, which is always inimitable and peculiar to each literary work.
A MOOSE
Peculiar features of children’s books’ illustrations are reflected in the ability of both the writer and the artist to have an insight into the world of the child’s mind, using characters and concepts that are close to the youngster’s perception.
The artworks on display illustrate true masterpieces of children’s literature: Black stories from Frenchman Cendrars, which he dedicated to “Dana for her penguin, Claude for her chicken and little cabin boy Andre from his commander,” and fantastic Ukrainian author Hutsalo’s amazing story about hares cooking borscht in the fields. Kvasha created bright, funny, and sometimes touchingly lyrical images that are able to convey the unique world of each literary work completely and acutely.
The exhibition will be on display until October 12.
