The Crimea in the Graphics of Olena Mykhailova-Rodina

Author

Lamonova Oksana

a Ph.D. in Art Studies, a senior research fellow at Fine, Decorative and Applied Arts Department of M. Rylskyi Institute of Art Studies, Folkloristics and Ethnology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Kyiv, Ukraine).

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6937-421X

The Crimea in the Graphics of Olena Mykhailova-Rodina

Abstract

A Kyiv-based artist, Olena Mykhailova-Rodina, works both as a painter and as a graphic artist. Among her paintings are The New World (1998), August (2001), By the River Snov (2003), Garden at Night (2006), Sunny Day (2008), Summer – 2014 (2015), and others. As a book illustrator, she created artworks for children’s literature – in particular, Chinese, Japanese, and Burmese folk tales – favouring mixed-media techniques that combine ink with various materials such as watercolour, gouache, and felt-tip pens. While working on easel graphic art, Mykhailova-Rodina turned to relief printing techniques, despite their declining popularity among artists during the 1970s and 1980s, especially compared to the “total enthusiasm for linocut” characteristic of the 1960s, when etching and its variants, as well as lithography, came to dominate. Her series inspired by The Tale of Ihor’s Campaign (1980–1986) was executed in woodcut. The works dedicated to Crimea were created in colour linocut: Gurzuf. Evening Beach, Gurzuf. Wind, Gurzuf. Moon Road (all from 1987), and the five-piece series Southern City. Yevpatoria (1992). The artist’s engagement with the “secondary” genre of landscape (as well as with still life and interior) is characteristic of Ukrainian art – particularly graphic art – of the period of “quiet protest” (1970s–1980s). The Gurzuf linocuts are marked by a cold (“nocturnal”) colour palette and a pronounced geometric structure, which impart to them a degree of stylisation and affinity with abstract art. This brings them closer to the urban landscapes of the well-known Ukrainian graphic artist of the 1960s, Oleksii Fishchenko (1920–2010), such as Majestic Calm. Kyiv is Growing (1986), Seductive Outlines (1988), The Break of Evening Light, and Blue Flame (both 1990). The Yevpatorian linocuts reflect another tendency typical of the “quiet protest” period – the opposition between the notions of “city” and “home”, an attention to images of domestic life, and a deliberate focus on the chamber, intimate, and inward. Expressive figures and even elements of everyday scenes are introduced into the landscape. The outward simplicity and clarity of composition are complemented by a refined colour palette, especially in Southern City. Yevpatoria II and Southern City. Yevpatoria V. At the same time, the general mood of the Yevpatorian series – its sense of mystery and unreality – aligns it with the Crimean works of Serhii Pustovit (1945–1992), whose style the artist himself described as “magical realism”. Thus, the Gurzuf and Yevpatorian linocuts of Olena Mykhailova-Rodina stand as characteristic and expressive examples of Ukrainian graphic art of the late 20th century, vividly reflecting and, to some extent, preserving the tendencies typical of national art during the period of the so-called “quiet protest”.

Keywords

Olena Mykhailova-Rodina, Ukrainian graphic art of the 1980s and 1990s, easel graphics, linocut, Crimea.

References

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