DATELINE NEW YORK: Everywhere you turn - Ukrainian artists

by Helen Smindak

There are artists who work in traditional modes, like Mykhaylo Barabash, whose oil paintings and woodcut engravings were shown at the Shevchenko Scientific Society from February 27 to March 7. And then there are non-conformist artists, like Tamara Zahaykevich, whose work was exhibited at the Armory Art Fair in Manhattan earlier this month and is currently on view at the Bellwether Gallery in Brooklyn.

Ms. Zahaykevich's sculptures, constructed in various colors of foam core and held together by hot glue, reference architecture as well as household furniture, domestic consumables and their packaging. Most of them are diminutive in size.

Her pieces, as described by Susan Hamburger in Waterfront Week magazine, appear to be "a backward glance distorted by an unclear memory that conflates elements of the past to produce hybrids."

Ms. Hamburger has written: "Most everything is reminiscent of something, and yet not quite right. Ms. Zahaykevich subtly explores the ways in which we begin to forget our pasts as they were and reconstruct them as we wish they had been, distorting and reinforcing the new version as truth with each retelling."

At 32, Tamara Zahaykevich is a successful emerging artist; her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in New York, Boston and Chicago, as well as in Maine and Florida, and in Sweden. She has won several fellowships and has earned critical reviews in New York and Boston publications.

With her small sculptures selling for $1,100 to $1,200 each, she is making her living as an artist. Larger sculptures, some measuring up to 5 feet in height and width, are higher priced.

When I visited her studio on South Third Street in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn recently, she showed me sculptures that she planned to include in her "Pearl Onion" exhibit at the Bellwether Gallery. Among them was a work titled "Sage" and another she calls "Things would be different if I'd been to Arizona."

"Sage" (2003), a work that stands 7 inches high, 5.5 inches wide and 4 inches deep, is a cross-section of a room with an object inside. With its grey floor and pale green walls, the room appears to be a gallery; its supporting walls are white and function more as "space" than definitive walls, since they blend in with the white walls of the artist's studio.

Ms. Zahaykevich explained that the black object inside the room looks like a huge sculpture overwhelming the space; the top of the sculpture rises above the height of the walls. Sage refers to the wall color that designers call sage in reference to the color of the herb. It is also sage, or wise, because it has found a way to exist in the space it is in; it has the capacity to move beyond the limitations of its (gallery) space.

"Things would be different if I'd been to Arizona" (2000) is a landscape inspired by photos of the Zahaykevich family, living and traveling in the Southwest before the artist was born. A corner floor piece that stands 30 inches high and 16 inches wide in some areas and 9 inches wide in others, it is composed of a series of tan-colored foam core layers 2 to 3 inches high. The layers of foam have been scored, pushed and pulled to produce an organic shape, and are not level with the floor or with each other.

Discussing her process and technique, Ms. Zahaykevich said that she teases traditionally rigid and dimensionless material with straight cuts and scoring, bending and forcing to make it rounder and organic, like fissures on stone or cumulus clouds. "The works are somewhat rough-hewn in their exposed foam-core joinery; holes (are) filled with bits and scraps, showing glue seams," she noted.

Drawings, 2-D inspirations and scraps are her starting points and windows of opportunity to recall and recreate a sense of meaning. Her color choices range from model-maker's landscaping beiges and greens to acid neons, to "provide both counter-intuitive interpretations and suggestive readings." Color choice, she pointed out, also implies texture - as in one work, a kind of "dust storm" - referencing these spaces in their environment.

Ms. Zahaykevich thinks the basis for her artistry began in her childhood, when she liked to work in her dad's basement tool shop. She would put scraps of wood into the vise and cut it up, "dividing and dividing until there wasn't a substantial piece of wood left."

The daughter of Ihor Zahaykevich of Charleston, S.C., and the late Nadia Zahaykewich, the artist was born and raised in Maplewood, N.J. A rebellious child who disliked what she calls the "strictness" of the Ukrainian community, she nevertheless loved her family's holiday traditions and taught herself how to decorate Ukrainian Easter eggs.

She recalls one Christmas Eve when hay could not be purchased to put under the table, according to Ukrainian Yuletide custom. "My mom asked me to rip out some grass from the backyard and we baked it in the oven, but I was told not to let my grandmother know that it wasn't real hay," she confided with a grin.

A 1995 graduate of the Tyler School of Art in Rome with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in sculpture, Ms. Zahaykevich also studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She spent a year in South Carolina, hoping to save enough money to buy a truck and move to California for graduate study at UCLA or Pasadena, but quit the job when she realized that "New York was where I wanted to be."

She moved to New York in 1996 and did freelance work until September 2001. The 9/11 tragedy, which caught her at the Port Authority terminal in midtown Manhattan as she was about to board a bus for New Jersey, made her realize that "my art was the most meaningful thing to me." Since that fateful day, her studio has been the center of her life.

Her show at the Bellwether Gallery, a Williamsburg site that attracts a young and hip crowd, was scheduled to open March 21 and will run through April 21.

Located at 355 Grand St. (between Havemeyer and Marcy) in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, the gallery is open from noon to 6 p.m. on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, and by appointment. Telephone: (718) 387-3701; e-mail address: bellwethergallery.com.

Barabash exhibit

Mykhaylo Barabash's graphic art work and oil paintings, though they may be classified as traditional in style, have an individual flair that makes them memorable. Mr. Barabash, whose work was shown recently at the Shevchenko Scientific Society in the East Village, finds inspiration for his landscapes and portraits in his native village,Vidnyky, located in the Lviv region, as well as in landscapes of Lviv, the Carpathian mountains and New York City.

His finely etched black-and-white woodcut prints preserve the medieval period of the city of Lviv. His colorful oil paintings include works that have a certain childlike fantasy-land quality, emphasized by long curving lines and undulating shapes.

Active since 1980 in easel painting, and book and advertising design, Mr. Barabash has participated in numerous regional, Ukrainian national and international exhibitions. His graphic art was exhibited in New York in 1991 and 1994.

In the field of book illustration and advertising design, he has created designs and illustrations for a number of books and magazines, a set of postcards (1990) and a 1999 wall calendar depicting old Lviv.

Born in 1952 to Fedir and Stephania (Pochmursky) Barabash, the artist studied graphic arts at the Ivan Fedorov Ukrainian Polygraphic Institute in Lviv. He was a lecturer) at Lviv's Ivan Trush College of Decorative and Applied Arts from 1980 until 1989, when he became head of the school's graphics department.

Since moving to New York in 1999, Mr. Barabash has taken part in an international graphics exhibition in Japan and has created a series of paintings and works depicting New York City senes.

Around town

Canadian-born actress Tannis Kowalchuk, who founded the NaCl (North American Cultural Laboratory) Theatre in New York with her husband, Brad Krumholz, is currently performing Off Broadway in a two-woman anti-war theater production based on poems by the German playwright and social critic Bertolt Brecht. Ms. Kowalchuk and actress Leese Walker of the Strike Anywhere Performance Ensemble are appearing in "10 Brecht Poems" at the Brecht Forum, 122 W. 27th St. (10th floor) through April 5. The humorous revue combines physical theater, song and visual art. For information, call (212) 946-5734.

At the Metropolitan Opera, baritone Vassily Gerello and bass/baritone Paul Plishka have been singing their hearts out in Puccini's poignant tale of young writers and habitués of the Latin Quarter of Paris. Mr. Gerello, as the painter Marcello, completed his season's stint at the Met with the matinee performance of March 8 (broadcast live on WQXR Radio). Mr. Plishka, as Benoit and also as Musetta's wealthy lover, Alcindoro, will appear in "Boheme" performances from April 1 to May 2.

A fascinating new book co-authored by Virlana Tkacz, Sayan Zhambalov and Wanda Phipps, "Shanar: Dedication Ritual of a Buryat Shaman in Siberia" (Parabola Press), was given a royal launching at Tibet House in Manhattan on March 6. Ms. Tkacz, well-known for her work as director of the Yara Arts Group, has just returned to New York after a semester of teaching in Kyiv on a Fulbright Fellowship. She showed slides of the Buryat people of Siberia, prepared by her husband, Watoku Ueno, and Alexander Khantaev, and talked about the ritual of "shanar," used to initiate, dedicate and celebrate the calling of a shaman (priest). The evening included readings by Ms. Phipps, a performance of ritual songs by Meredith Wright, book signings and a festive reception at the gallery cum bookstore cum library.

Touring troupes

The Cheres Ukrainian Folk Ensemble and director Andriy Milavsky headed for the hills a few weeks ago - in Illinois and Wisconsin. They had a heavy tour schedule, with 30 concerts in the two states that wound up with a gala performance at the historic Capitol Theater in Davenport, Iowa, on March 15. For this final performance, the Cheres ensemble was joined by a select group of dancers from Philadelphia's Voloshky ensemble, directed by Taras Lewyckyj.

The underground gypsy punk rock band Gogol Bordello and lead singer Eugene Hutz also left town temporarily. Traveling to nearly 20 cities on its second North American tour, the band made a stop at this year's SXSW Music Convention in Austin, Texas. Gogol Bordello will be back in New York after its March 29 concert at Beat Kitchen in Chicago.

New Yorkers who missed the Duquesne University Tamburitzans when they appeared here last October have another chance to catch this vibrant ensemble and its coterie of Ukrainian dancers. They'll be performing just minutes away from New York in Hackensack, N.J., on March 29 (7.30 p.m.) and March 30 (2 p.m.) - the venue is the Bergen County Technical School. Included in the ensemble are Pennsylvania Ukrainians Matt Haritan, Jessica Craig, Dana Holomshek and David Venditti and Connecticut Ukie Katia Romaniw. Seats are reserved and are available by phoning 1-877-TAMMIES (1-877-826-6427).

Back for an encore performance in the Tamburitzans show is Virsky's "Bereznianka" from the Zakarpattia region of Ukraine. Tammie alumnus Andrij Cybyk of New York instructed and staged the set for this delightful number.

Helen Smindak's e-mail address is HaliaSmindak@aol.com.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, March 23, 2003, No. 12, Vol. LXXI

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