Art lounge
METAMORPHOSES
Exhibition of graphics by Mykola Skliarov
30 January 2025 - 2 March 2025

After 24 February 2022, the Khmelnytskyi region became a second home for many artists from those regions that found themselves under temporary Russian occupation or under daily enemy shelling. Almost all of them had to leave their homes and their usual way of life, but they continued to make art, and even show their works to the public by opening personal exhibitions. In particular, the exhibition ‘Magic Power’ by Oksana Dashyvets (Novoselivka village, Kramatorsk district), ‘Mariupol. Reality before…’ by Artem Bereznev (Mariupol), ‘Paths on the Canvas’ by Svitlana Makarenko (Dnipro), ‘Time Filters’ by Olena Rubliova (Horlivka – Kyiv), ‘Travelling the World’ by Andrii Kutana (Mariupol – Sloviansk), ‘Impermanence. Diptychs’ by Andrii Piven (Druzhkivka).

The exhibition ‘METAMORPHOSES’ presents graphic works by Mykola Skliarov, a monumental artist from Lysychansk. They were created in 2022-2024, in the Khmelnytskyi region, where the artist was forced to move by the war. ‘Metamorphoses’ opens the world of Mykola Skliarov in a different way, not only in the smaller scale of his works, but also in the drawing technique, subjects, themes, and imagery. The images, mostly in black and white, fill the entire space of the sheet and create the impression of illustrations for phantasmagoric works, combining symbolism, fantasy, philosophy, and metamorphic images.

Metamorphosis is the most general concept for the processes taking place in the Universe, namely the ability of living beings or even entire phenomena to transform, acquiring new features, forms or properties. It covers a wide range of natural processes and human activities. As a powerful symbol of transformation, change and inner development, metamorphosis is also embodied in various forms of art, from painting and sculpture to literary works, where each image or plot reflects the transformations that occur with characters or objects. Mykola Skliarov’s metamorphism is a successful attempt to dive into the essence of human and animal nature, blurring the lines between reality and vision, transforming one substance into another. Using only graphite and paper, the artist skilfully embodies this theme, creating magical shapes and outlines, complex lace patterns, encouraging their meditative contemplation.

Inspired by the works of Pavlo Filonov, whose paintings require long contemplation and attention to detail, Mykola Skliarov tells about spiritual search, hidden truths, eternal questions of existence and even metaphysical ideas, and in his plots skilfully combines images of people, animals, plants and objects. In the work ‘Dreams of Telemachus’ we see a combination of images of classical mythology, which the author is fond of, with symbolism (ancient Greek boats, Sirens – maidens with a bird’s body and chicken legs, theatrical masks, elements of ancient Greek architecture). The lace interweaving of amphorae, plants, birds and building fragments with arched elements of architectural decor, which echoes the arabesque (an oriental medieval ornament consisting mainly of geometric, calligraphic and floral details), resembles the subjects of the works ‘Chimera Gardens’ and ‘Improvisation’.

The work ‘Spin Hawking’ testifies to the artist’s fascination with natural sciences. The main focus of the famous English physicist Stephen Hawking’s research was cosmology and quantum gravity, which he tried to explain in simple and accessible language. The nature of space and time, the origin of the Universe, the laws of its existence and possible scenarios of development are also of interest to Mykola Skliarov. Using the technique of story application, he presented his vision of the properties of elementary particles (spin is an intrinsic property of an elementary particle, related but not identical to the usual concept of rotation).

And the artist’s fascination with music, in particular, classical music, is seen in the works ‘Music’ (the characters of the work are depicted with musical instruments and seem to be in reflection or contemplation, which enhances the meditative nature of the work), ‘Running. Wading’ (wading along the river bottom, one of the characters holds a stringed musical instrument, perhaps the most important thing worth saving).

Numerous still lifes depicting elaborately decorated utensils (vases, teapots, amphorae) are complemented by symbolic objects (a key, a rope – in the work ‘Family’), shells and mosaic decoration (‘Still Life of a Sleepy Man’, ‘Teapot. Kerosene Lamp’, ‘Still Life with a Shell’), images of birds and insects (‘Birds’, ‘Vases’).

Other graphic works represent elegant female images with characteristic features: the artist focuses on the elongated oval of the face, almond-shaped eyes, sharp chin, thin elongated neck (‘Woman with Three Eyebrows,’ ‘Artist,’ ‘Odud,’ ‘Woman with a Cat’). The portrait of an old migrant woman with dark, sad and sore eyes (‘Woman from the Village of Makarove’) differs from the previous ones. Reflecting the feelings of fatigue, reflection, frustration on her face, the author subtly conveys the physical and spiritual state of a person who has seen the war.

The artist created the narrative compositions ‘White Tablecloth’, ‘Bathing a Dog’, ‘Cat with a Lost Paw’, ‘The Storm’s Lull’ in mixed media, adding colour to them. And the work ‘White Tablecloth’ is planned to be executed on a large format in the technique of painting.

Each work of Mykola Skliarov is a mystery, which contains a lot of ancient themes and at the same time modern in technique and understanding. You can spend hours looking at his graphics, constantly discovering new, previously unnoticed strokes, associative interpretations, and the possibility of parallel reading of the elements of ‘metamorphosis’.

REFERENCES:

Mykola Skliarov is a monumentalist artist (born in 1958 in Krasnodar Krai), since the 1980s he lived in Lysychansk, Luhansk region; with the beginning of the full-scale invasion he moved to Khmelnytskyi region; currently lives in Malynychi village, Khmelnytskyi district.

In 1979, he graduated from the Samara (Kuibyshev) State Institute of Culture with a degree in mural painting and mosaic installation.

After serving in the army, he worked as a painter at a Christmas tree decorations factory in Lysychansk.

In the 90s, he worked as a decorator at the Luhansk Art and Production Plant (a branch in Lysychansk), and was engaged in monumental work – artistic design of various institutions (miners’ canteens, kindergartens). Before the full-scale invasion, he also designed portraits for monuments – he carved them on granite.

He started his exhibition activity in his student years. Participant of city and regional exhibitions, including: citywide art exhibitions (Lysychansk City Museum of Local Lore), regional exhibition (National Palace of Arts ‘Ukraine’ in 2004). He held many personal exhibitions, one of which was held in the Khmelnytskyi Regional Universal Scientific Library in 2024.

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