Four Ukrainian artists in the spotlight at Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture (04/28/02)

Four Ukrainian artists in the spotlight at Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture

by Orysia Antonovych

CHICAGO - The Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture recently presented an art exhibit featuring the work of four Ukrainian artists: Erika Komonyi, Yevhen Prokopov, Yuri Skorupsky and Alexander Tkachenko. The exhibit, held in celebration of the 10th aniversary of Ukrainian independence, was on view at the museum on March 15 through April 15.

The museum, founded in Chicago in 1966, by Stanley Balzekas Jr., who serves as its president, is dedicated to the development and preservation of Lithuanian culture in America and to building cooperative relationships with Lithuanian and American cultural institutions. Intent on presenting art in a broad context, it looks for opportunities to showcase artists of diverse ethnic backgrounds.

With reference to the current exhibit by Ukrainian artists, Mr. Balzekas noted that it was among the best shown at the museum.

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Mr. Skorupsky studied art at the Lviv National Institute of Applied and Decorative Arts, the National University of Fine Arts in Moscow and at the Yaniv College of Woodworking Arts. In the town of Rava-Ruska in western Ukraine, he founded an artists' organization which he called Dolya (Fate). The artists in this organization had a wide range of styles that were not sanctioned by the Soviet government because any art that reflected one's own individual philosophy was forbidden.

In 1991 Mr. Skorupsky came to the United States, where he quickly adapted to the American way of life and established himself as a professional artist. Some of his commissions include designing the interior and painting icons for the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Ukrainian Catholic Church in Palos Park, Ill., as well as murals altars in the Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church in Chicago, built by architect Louis Sullivan in 1892. His landscapes and portraits, many of them influenced by his visits to the American Southwest, are found in prestigious galleries throughout the United States.

Mr. Skorupsky is represented by the Ottinger Gallery of Chicago, where he has opened the doors to other Ukrainian artists as well. In his busy life as an artist, creating large works in a very small studio - he often extends his working space to the parking lot in the alley where children on roller skates put on the brakes to watch him - he still finds time to organize art exhibits for others. He is a member of the Oil Painters of America, the Chicago Art Coalition and Dolya Art Association whose fate, like Mr. Skorupsky's, was to grow new roots in the land of unlimited possibilities.

Since 1987, Ms. Komonyi's work has been shown extensively throughout the newly emerging countries of Eastern Europe. Drawing on the motifs of Transcapthian Ukraine, she specializes in decorative black ceramics but works in the full range of ceramic materials, including clay, stone, porcelain and raku. Pottery and ceramics are one of the most time-honored forms of artistic expression going back to the Stone Age, and an art, Ms. Komonyj points out, that was primarily developed by women.

Since coming to the United States, she has expanded her repertoire to explore inks and papers, and recently produced a series of colored pencil drawings, both portraits and dreamscapes. Ms. Komonyi has been inspired by Native American art and designs, particularly by those indigenous to the Southwest. Her sense of line and color is very subtle, and the results are a striking combination of Native styles and Slavic themes. Ms. Komonyi is married to Mr. Skorupsky.

Mr. Tkachenko is rated as a master artist in his native Ukraine. He received his degree from the Dnipropetrovsk College of Art and in 1987 was accepted as a member of the Artists' Union of Ukraine, where he worked a designer and graphic artist. He is also a member of the Graphics Society of the City of Glasgow in Scotland and an active member of the Dolya Artists Association in Chicago. Several of his artworks received prestigious awards at the Eastern European Graphics Art show in Antwerp, Holland, in 1989.

Since 1991 Mr. Tkachenko has taken permanent residence in the United States, where he works actively as a professional artist. His current projects include mural fresco paintings in public and private interiors, book illustrations and painting. He also displays his vibrant art at numerous art shows across the country. Articles on Mr. Tkachenko have appeared in various periodicals, including Ukraine Magazine, Art Magazine, Liberty, California Chronicle, Arts and Entertainment, the Los Angeles Times and Our World.

Mr. Tkachenko developed his own style based on the traditions of the great masters of the Renaissance. He pays great attention to detail, precisely executing each stroke while preserving freedom of expression. His colors blend in delicate tones. Subtlety of form and free-flowing line render his subjects as seamlessly as the tonality of his colors. His work is steeped in symbolism from many sources; ancient and modern symbols are juxtaposed adding an aura of mystery to his work.

Often, Mr. Tkachenko paints his background as an old, poorly bleached, parchment. He then uses the elusive hues of the old parchment to enhance his subject. Worlds and symbols appear to leach through into his painting. The final result is an enchanting glimpse of the complex mind of the artist.

In painting Mr. Tkachenko uses watercolor, oil, gouache, ink, gold leaf and other materials. His own mixed-media style creates harmony in subtle and tonal shades among the multiple layers of his paintings. Exotic terrains, mysterious symbols, and exquisitely detailed anatomies combine to imprint indelible impressions upon the viewers and draw them into the artist's world.

Mr. Tkachenko's work is found in permanent collections in the Dnipropetrovsk National Art Museum in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine, and the Ukrainian National Museum in Chicago, as well as in private collections in Europe and North America. His works are exhibited in and represented by The Opus Gallery in Cleveland, the Alla Rogers Gallery in Washington, the Gallery Birmingham in Birmingham, Mich., and other venues.

Mr. Prokopov is a critically acclaimed Ukrainian artist now living in Chicago. His sculptures are widely exhibited in the United States, Switzerland, Russia, Germany, Denmark, France and Israel. He is a graduate of the Kyiv Institute of Art and the Academy of Arts in Moscow, and is a member of the Artists' Union of Ukraine and the Dolya Artists Association in Chicago.

Mr. Prokopov's sculptures are noted for their artistic expression and emotional impact. He has the uncanny ability to render in bronze and stone many rich textures, paintings and pictorial surface details that have much in common with the techniques used in medieval icon painting.

His narrative is deeply philosophical and often metaphysical. In the words of the artist, the overall objective of his creative work "is to expand beyond the framework of the Ukrainian national tradition, seeking to convey in the plasticity of material and form that which is understood universally. Since coming to America, I have come to my own understanding of the capabilities of material and form, and I would like to continue working in this direction."

Mr. Prokopov's sculptures are found in Ukrainian State Fine Arts Museum; Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, Chicago; and the Biblical Arts Center Museum, Dallas. In the United States Mr. Prokopov is represented by the Ottinger Gallery, Chicago; Alla Rogers Gallery, Washington; Art Collective Gallery, San Francisco; Lazzaro Signature Gallery of Fine Arts, Stoughton, Wisc.; and John Collette Fine Art, Highlands, N.C.; among others.

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