Information about the work
Echoes of War [Vidlunnia Viyny] (canvas, oil, 1985, transferred by the Kyiv Art Institute to the Khmelnytskyi Regional Art Museum collection in 1986) is a diploma work dedicated to the tragic fate of women in the post-war era. In a leaden-gray space, the sorrowful figures of elderly and young women, girls, and children seem frozen in their doom to solitude and profound grief. The poignant void in the center of the composition acts as one of the central motifs of the work: the empty place at the table reserved for men who will never sit at it again symbolizes the millions of human casualties of the war.
“An open gramophone does not generate sound, but its very form condensates the feel of the era. The past can hide in a certain object, and therefore it can suddenly be found as a whole, its fragrance grasped,” writes art historian Olha Lahutenko. The record player contrastingly underscores the drama of a time when women worked hard rebuilding destroyed cities and villages, sowed grain, labored at factory machines, and raised children at home while handling household chores. This diploma work convincingly testifies to the painterly innovation and artistic maturity of the institute’s graduate.
Oil on canvas. 154 × 283
