War and peace intertwined in one exhibition, but with unwavering faith in our Victory - this is how the exhibition opened on May 14 at the Center for Culture and Arts of Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute can be described. Or rather, there are two of them: "Faces of Power" by artist Natalia Duka and "Kyiv Motifs" by Asya Kolos.
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Impressionist Asya Kolos works in different genres, but pays special attention to landscapes in her work. Her paintings are bright and a bit magical. The artist manages to reproduce, for example, the color of rain, the mysterious darkness of the night, dreamy spring or generous colors of autumn. Experts note the amazing elegance, harmony, and sensuality of her paintings.
Asya Kolos is the daughter of famous architects and the granddaughter of the world-famous Boychukist artist Serhii Hryhorovych Kolos, who in 1917-1918, together with the artists Mykhailo Boichuk, Oleksandr Murashko, Heorhii Narbut and the Krychevskyi brothers, participated in the creation of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts, and in 1925-1930 created and headed the textile department of the Kyiv Art Institute. In 2006, the S. Kolos Prize for Achievement in Decorative and Applied Arts was founded, which is awarded to the best artists of Kyiv.
The artist graduated from the Ukrainian Academy of Arts. Since 1999, she has been a member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine. Since 1989, she has participated in national, international and city exhibitions. Her name is widely known in Ukraine and abroad.
Natalia Duca, on the other hand, is an amateur portraitist. This is her first solo exhibition. The paintings do not have titles, because each viewer will feel something different in them, consonant with the time, mood, and experiences.
Natalia Duca told a KP correspondent that the works presented were created over the past year, they convey the emotions and feelings of the author. "When watching the news, photos or videos from the Internet, I have deep feelings, which I then convey through artistic means," the artist described the birth of her paintings.
Serhiy Komisarov, Honored Journalist of Ukraine, founder of the international art association "Come Back Alive", which includes 224 artists from 9 countries, said at the opening of the exhibition: "Mr. Natalia's works are 100-200-300 percent in line with the ideas of the art association, which brings together folk and honored artists as well as amateurs. Because the main thing that unites us is that artists create so-called contemporary art: they sensitively feel what war is, and with their works they reflect on what is happening in the country. That is, they write the history of our time in their paintings. Natalia Duca's portrait paintings convey the spirit of the times in which we live. She is a person with a strong patriotic stance."
It is deeply symbolic that at the same time, but in another hall, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was speaking to the polytechnics. He also spoke about the spirit of the times, the spirit of Ukrainians: "The spirit of Ukrainians cannot be destroyed by bombs or buried in a mass grave, it is not afraid of threats, it is pure, unbreakable, and this is the key to victory."
If you visit the Synitsyna Art Gallery until the end of May, you will have the opportunity to immerse yourself in the hazy Kyiv landscapes, to remember and dream. Or you can release your emotions, pain and tension in front of portraits of contemporaries whose fate was torn apart by the war.