The State Polytechnic Museum at Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute recently hosted an exhibition by renowned Kyiv artist Larisa Pukhanova. The exhibition featured her paintings and graphic works depicting cityscapes from around the world, historic neighborhoods, charming courtyards, and Kyiv streets shrouded in the morning mist.
An avid traveler, the artist brings home countless sketches inspired by the places she visits. One of the genres in which Larisa Pukhanova has achieved particular recognition is the urban landscape. Many of her paintings and graphic works are devoted to her hometown of Kyiv, which she describes as her place of strength and her magical city.
The artworks are created using a wide variety of techniques, including oil painting, gouache, watercolor, pencil drawing, ballpoint pen, and felt-tip marker. Larisa Pukhanova possesses a distinctive artistic language, refined aesthetic sensibility, and a recognizable personal style. Another field in which she has achieved remarkable success is book illustration, creating artwork for fairy tales and short stories. The exhibition also features a selection of the artist's original handmade toys.
Color plays a central role in Larisa Pukhanova's work. Her palette is both aesthetically rich and emotionally expressive, and she uses it with remarkable skill and sensitivity. Art historian Olha Pesha, reflecting on the artist's work, noted that, as Larisa Pukhanova once remarked in an interview, "there was no color for war." Although deeply aware of the devastating reality brought by war, the artist consciously chooses to focus her attention on a flower, a bird, or the sky, transforming them into sources of inspiration, admiration, and hope. Through her art, Larisa Pukhanova has created her own symbolic, multicolored universe—one that radiates kindness, light, and extraordinary warmth.
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