Biography
Liudmyla Oleksandrivna Zahorna (b. 1946, Kyiv) is a printmaker, graphic artist, and painter.
From 1971 — Participant in regional and international exhibitions. Solo exhibition in Freiburg, Germany (1992).
1974 — Graduated from the Kyiv State Art Institute; instructors included Mykhailo Vainshtein, Andriy Chebykin, and Tetiana Yablonska.
1974–1988 — Worked at the Kyiv Combine of Monumental and Decorative Art and for the children’s magazine Malyatko (Kyiv, 1985–1988).
1977 — Member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine.
1985 — Participant in the legendary Exhibition of Nine at the Republican House of Artists, Kyiv (participants: Yakym Levych, Oleksandr Ahafonov, Halyna Hryhorieva, Liudmyla Zahorna, Anatoliy Lymariev, Vladyslav Mamsikov, Vira Morozova, Oleksandr Sulymenko, and Yuliy Sheynis).
Lives and works in Kyiv.
Her primary fields are easel graphics, book illustration, and easel painting; her core themes center on her native land and its people, as well as the psychology and ethics of the individual within society. In the 1970s, she joined the circle of Kyiv artists engaged in the so-called “quiet resistance.” In the early 1960s, a cohort of young artists emerged who rejected the tenets of Socialist Realism in their creative work: Halyna Hryhorieva, Zoya Lerman, Yakym Levych, Anatoliy Lymariev, Ihor Hryhoriev, Heorhiy Yakutovych, Mykhailo Vainshtein, Vladyslav Mamsikov, Yuriy Lutskevych, Oleksandr Ahafonov, and Yuriy Malyshevskyi. In the 1970s, their works were almost entirely barred from public exhibitions; paradoxically, the artists held private viewings in the studio of Halyna Hryhorieva’s father, the recognized Socialist Realist master Serhiy Hryhoriev. Following an informant’s report, a scandal erupted within the NSHU, attracting KGB scrutiny. The landmark Exhibition of Nine (Kyiv, 1985) is considered a key watershed moment for creative freedom. While Soviet art critics, artists, and journalists disparaged the show as “characterless,” audiences warmly embraced the progressive output of these talented creators.
As art historian Valeriy Sakharuk writes, the Exhibition of Nine was years in the making, yet it failed to become a celebrated milestone in the capital’s cultural life at the time. Participant and artist Yakym Levych recalled: “We expected so much from this exhibition. Lymariev showed a substantial body of work for the first time, which intrigued the public. But overall, the attempt ended tragically: fellow artists rejected us. I remember a friend embracing me and saying, ‘Very bad.’ We simply didn’t fit in anywhere—we were neither left nor right… Everyone wondered: ‘What more do you need? Just paint like everyone else!'” Sakharuk notes that “1985 was perhaps the final year in this standoff. The following year brought Perestroika, leading to the loss of ideological control over the creative process and, eventually, the collapse of the Soviet state itself.”
