Biography
Liudmyla Oleksandrivna Mazur (1947, Salnytsia village, Vinnytsia Oblast – 2000, Kyiv, buried in Khmelnytskyi) – master of vytynanka (paper-cutting), graphic artist, painter, monumentalist. Husband – People’s Artist of Ukraine Mykola Mazur, son – People’s Artist of Ukraine, sculptor Bohdan Mazur, daughter – artist and art critic Oksana Mazur.
1968 – graduated from the Odesa Art School named after M. Grekov; teacher – Serhii Lukin.
1970 – 1979 – worked at the Children’s Art School, Khmelnytskyi.
1970 – 1990 – worked as a design artist and monumentalist in artistic and production workshops, Khmelnytskyi.
From 1975 – participant in regional, national, and international exhibitions.
1990 – member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine.
1994 – Oleksandr and Leontii Tarasevych All-Ukrainian Award from the National Union of Artists of Ukraine and the Orazotvorche Mystetstvo magazine.
1998 – 2000 – held the position of Chief Artist of the City, Khmelnytskyi.
From 2000 – a public competition for the Liudmyla Mazur Prize has been held;
since 2015, it acquired the status of the Liudmyla Mazur “Podilian Palette” Regional Children’s Competition of Young Artists, and since 2016 – named after Liudmyla and Mykola Mazur (the Khmelnytskyi Regional Art Museum, supported by the Khmelnytskyi Regional Council).
2022 – 2023 – large-scale retrospective exhibition of Liudmyla and Mykola Mazur “Inspired” (curators – Olena Mykhailovska and Oksana Mazur) at the Khmelnytskyi Regional Art Museum. Lived and worked in Khmelnytskyi.
Using the features of Podilian vytynankas (techniques of cutting silhouettes of flowers, garlands, butterflies, doves, little stars, and little Christmas trees from white paper folded in half, quarters, or sixths; single-axis mirror symmetry with a three-tier division), she introduced asymmetry and applique. Initially, folk motifs dominated the vytynankas, but features of figurative psychologism, symbolism, and philosophical generalization later appeared. The source of the imaginative world and artistic techniques of Liudmyla Mazur’s vytynankas, graphics, and painting is Slavic mythology, customs, rites, beliefs, and traditions of folk art.
Searches for identity not only in history but also in the traditional culture of Ukraine became massive in the painting of the late 1980s and early 1990s – ranging from thorough elaboration of the theme and source base to rather superficial decorativism. Extremely generalized forms and an ethnographic source base did not prevent Liudmyla Mazur from very talented and non-banal “storytelling” regarding the complex theme of Ukrainian folk art heritage and bypassing “shovarshchyna” (kitschy pseudo-folklorism). The work Rushnyk [Rushnyk] (masonite, oil, 1991) was donated to the Khmelnytskyi Regional Art Museum collection in 2010 by Bohdan Telenko, a public figure, journalist, and initiator of the establishment of the children’s competition for the Liudmyla Mazur Prize in 2000.
The painting bears obvious influences of her primary medium – vytynanka, because with minimal and essentially graphic means of expression (line, color spot, unfilled background space, concise palette of local colors), it clearly and convincingly transmits a message about the threat of the irrevocable loss of traditions of folk embroidery art. The characters do not try to organize themselves into a traditional pattern on the conventional rushnyk, but rather complement the bestiary of folk demonology, trying to flee rapidly from the surface of the canvas.
“In vytynanka, Liudmyla Mazur confidently experimented, resorting to a synthesis of a traditional type of folk decorative art with applique, collage, and graphics, which gave vytynanka a modern sound, revealing and expanding its boundaries. The world of folk art, its imagery, and symbolism are the foundation of the artist’s work; each time she shows it differently, demonstrating the inexhaustible possibilities of synthesizing professional art and the deep sources of folklore and poetic creation, which reflects the soul of the Ukrainian people. The artist’s works are characterized by an impeccable sense of composition, conciseness of line, form, and color ratios of spots, which corresponds to graphic thinking. However, stylistically her works can be divided into two groups: in some we encounter a direct appeal to folk-poetic images corresponding to a naive visual embodiment, while in others – when depicting folk poetics and semantic symbolism – we see an almost formal solution, where large concise spots of color create an absolutely modern image,” writes art critic Olha Sobokovych.
