ATRIBUTES OF A LIFE: New personal project by young and well known artist Sasha Makarska
17.05.2007 — 17.06.2007

Kyiv, May 17th, 2007, 6:30 PM – Collection Gallery presents new paintings by the young, well-known Ukrainian artist Sasha Makarska.

Sasha Makarska first materialized in the legendary project R.†E.†S. (–.Å.Ï. - Revolutionary Experimental Space) in the National University “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy” Centre for Contemporary Art in the winter of 2004.

At that time Sasha played on a quotation from a Van Gogh canvas, as if she were multiplying the famous chair illuminated by a sun that looked like a fried egg.

During 2005 Makarska took part in the R.†E.†S. team art exhibits, and later on she concentrated on individual painting. Her recent exhibitions “Local Warming” (together with Mykyta Kadan, where exotic animals walking along the recognizable streets of the city of Kyiv are depicted) and “Alphabet” (where each picture is devoted to each letter), have generated the keen interest of specialists as well as the general public alike.

Sasha Makarska’s painting is lyrical, soft, and often surrealistic. One can feel her works to have been influenced by Oleh Holosiy, the best-known representative of the “Ukrainian wave” of the 1980s, who tragically died in 1993. Makarska’s canvases look as though they “came from a dream,” where no object has distinct borders, and all scenes are mysterious and unreal. Makarska creates misty-colored surfaces – the sky, the sun glints in a windowpane, the sea; sometimes she paints flowers, giving them notes of an infantile quality and soulfulness.

Jerzy Onuh, curator and director of the Polish Institute in Kyiv, in his essay for the exhibition catalogue writes: “Unarmed and helpless – that is how I felt for the first time standing in front of Sasha Makarska’s artistic declaration. The artist’s pictorial strategy shines with great naivety, although with naïve gratitude Makarska uses the practice of quotation, already well-mastered by the world of art – fragments of photos, prints, and pictures cut out from color magazines and so on. The artist never betrays her territory of painting. It may seem similar to the functioning of a digital monitor, where 72 dots per inch are sufficient for the complete reading and understanding of a picture. So there are enough of those deliberately restricted “pictorially-informational bits” in Makarska’s canvases for us to feel comfortable in the domain of classic easel painting.”

Oleg Bayshev, art director of Collection Gallery comments on Makarska’s works: “Her gift of creating beauty is the feeling of simple and recognizable human delight. The element of painting itself reigns here, when the air becomes a character. It is wrapping around us and warming us up. Sasha’s art is amazement at the world, which can be felt only in one’s childhood.”

The well-know band Revenko Music will be performing at the opening of Sasha Makarska’s project.

The exhibition will lasting until June 14th. A catalogue is available. Collection Gallery is open every day, except Monday, from 10 AM till 7 PM.

The exhibition press tour of the exhibit begins at 6:30 PM, and media representatives will be the first to see the exhibition. The official opening will take place at 7:00 PM on May 19th in Collection Gallery at 8, Pankivska St., www.collectiongallery.com.ua

For more information please contact Pillar PR-agency project manager Olesya Ostrovska: Tel. (044) 459 3437/38, mobile (067) 942 0628 Ostrovska@pillarpr.com.ua