The famous theorist of postmodernism, Joseph Beuys, once said: “Every human being is an artist”. This controversial quote is the central concept of this exhibition. Who is an artist and what is art itself are almost rhetorical questions. In fact, Beuys believed, that everyone is capable of becoming an artist and there is no need for special art education. He was convinced that only art can help to find true freedom and oneself.

Artists that are represented in this exhibition are also find’s art as the basis of their lives

Three different people who share a common space, way of life, and even more – the same surname, work with different forms of artistic practices, and despite the differences in methodology, they are not accidentally similar in their thirst for knowledge of life and constant need to create.

The Shkoliar family is well known not only in our city, but also far beyond its borders. Each of them is a bright personality and an individual creative unit with a distinct background, but a similar goal – to learn about life and art in the most creative way possible. That is why their studio is a laboratory for constant creative experiments. It seems as though all possible types of artistic expression can be found here: painting, graphics, collage, assemblage, installation, video art, and various objects that the artists work on in different techniques and manners. Yet, despite their creative differences, together they create a strong symbiotic relationship that helps them complement each other and wisely face all the challenges of life. Essentially, this is what inspired the title of the exhibition.

“Isomorphism” – is the well-known concept in many sciences. But we will stop on a general definition – similarity of the absolutely different objects. So let’s try to investigate those similarity and differences in details.

Maryna Shavyrina-Shkoliar – mother. Painter, photographer, teacher of the artistic disciplines. Conciseness, figurativeness and emotionality are the foundations of her artistic method. She is always in search of new forms and experiments with texture. As a rule, she works with the small formats. She is very persistent and hard working. Once she set herself a goal– to create a portrait every single day and did it for 50 days. And these are not ordinary portraits. She mixed traditional approach, illustrativeness and abstractness in the process of their creation. As a result, she created anonymous portraits that seems unfinished. She pays attention to the smallest details (such as light, contrasts and backgrounds) in all her artworks. But the most important thing for her is emotionality, symbolism and inner freedom. And a good mood.

Serhii Shkoliar – father. He is an artist who develops his talent in the field of postmodernism. He is a rebel and an inventor. Most of his images arise in the process of working with forms. The main source of creativity for him is in the transformation of form. Serhii fills his artworks with grotesque, allegory and paradoxical combination of forms. Mythical heroes of the classical epic and strange creatures with certain human traits and emotions were his main characters at different times. The unusual materials that were used in the creation process deserve special attention (a small old hinge window pane, that was found in the garbage dump and used as the frame of painting; used coffee filter bags that become a background; citrus peels that turned into strange faces). And these provocative artworks were created for one reason only – to prove that art is beautiful and interesting in various forms. Art is provocative, inconvenient, sometimes asks questions and doesn’t give answers, always requires the self-improvement of the artist and viewer

Illia Shkoliar – son. It’s hard to imagine that such a young artist is capable of creating such ironic and wise artworks. The most important artistic abilities he got from his parents, who decided to teach him personally. Thanks to this approach he hasn’t lose his individuality. The main characters of Illia are weird people and fantastic creatures, who exist in their own worlds and get into unbelievable adventures. But even despite this, they are empathetic. The main source of inspiration for the young artist are books and his parents, who are not only the spectators, but also critics. His parents initiated the creation of the artbook “Simple – doesn’t mean difficult” which tells us about the author’s personal discoveries and hobbies in his life. Good humor is always present in Illia’s artworks. As his father Serhii Shkoliar says, every good idea becomes even better if you add a little bit of irony and a good joke.

Isomorphism (the Ancient Greek: ἴσος isos “equal”, and μορφή morphe “form” or “shape”.)

1)Isomorphism in mineralogy – Is the phenomenon of the occurrence of a group of minerals that have the same crystal structure (i.e. are isostructural) and in which specific sites can be occupied by two or more elements, ions, or radicals.

2)Isomorphism in mathematics – is a structure-preserving mapping between two structures of the same type that can be reversed by an inverse mapping.

3)Isomorphism in the literature – initially referring to the structuralist, in particular glossematic, hypothesis that the expression and meaning of linguistic signs show structural parallelisms, the term isomorphism is used in current linguistic theory to designate the one-to-one correspondence between expression and meaning