Information about the work
The painting Chasing [Pereslidvannya] (canvas, oil, 1989, transferred to the Khmelnytskyi Regional Art Museum collection by the Directorate of Art Exhibitions of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine in 2000) is a philosophical reflection on the lived experience of a wheelchair user in Soviet society. It addresses the reality that being different meant being discarded, left alone in an indifferent system. To convey the tragedy of this isolation, the artist constructs an emotionally arresting image: set in the middle of a junkyard, a lonely boy strains with all his might to chase down and catch a butterfly.
In Eastern art, the butterfly is a multifaceted symbol representing the soul, love, longevity, and transformation. What does the butterfly signify for the boy? A longing for love, emotional warmth, or hope for positive change—or perhaps all of these combined. The artist refrains from offering definitive answers or lecturing his audience; instead, he poses questions. The plastic language of the canvas blends modernism with the Kharkiv school of painting. The imagery is stylized, the paint application multi-layered and dynamic, and the restrained color palette accentuates the tragedy of a person with a disability condemned to loneliness within a society devoid of empathy and humanity.
Canvas, oil. 140 × 130
