Mariya Prymachenko. Boundless

The fantastic world of Mariya Prymachenko’s images is a unique artistic combination, a cultural phenomenon that mixes the traditions of folk art with personal talent and imagery. The external lyricism of artist’s works, which were opposed to the official Soviet ideology, expresses a certain philosophical search of the artist. The surrealistic motifs of her art give a background to consider Mariya Primachenko to have a genius that not only lead the artist ahead of her time, but also created a separate reality – unbelievable, wonderful and incomprehensible.

The ‘Mariya Prymachenko. Boundless’ exhibition is designed to present creativity of the artist as a polar sensation comparing to Soviet reality that was aimed at destroying the notion of personality and unifying the whole way of living and thinking under one ‘umbrella’. In such situation, where art was turned into a tool of propaganda and breeding of the ‘new man’, the artistic phenomenon of Mariya Prymachenko remains an unfathomable mystery.

From early years, Mariya showed the ability to draw. The beauty of nature has become the foundation for her original creativity. While studying in Kyiv at the Central Experimental Workshop of Folk Art at the Kyiv Museum of Ukrainian Art, Mariya Prymachenko worked fruitfully, experimenting with ceramics, creating watercolour drawings with fantastic creatures that would later inhabit her own artist cosmos.

These creative searches led Mariya to the use of the gouache, the rich colours of which allowed the artist to transfer all the diversity of the wonderful world she saw to paper.

Through a serious illness, compulsory labour on the collective farm, the tragedy of World War II that took away Mariya’s brother and husband, the Chernobyl catastrophe that had harmed her inspired native land, the artist carried the love to the world, her own inner radiance, combined with strong character and desire to create.

The musealization of works by Maria Prymachenko began in the 1930s when the first 200 works of the artist were submitted to the State Museum of Ukrainian Art (now the National Art Museum of Ukraine). After the creation in 1964 of the State Museum of Ukrainian Folk Decorative Art (now the National Folk Decorative Art Museum), the works of Mariya Prymachenko were transferred to its collection. Now the museum’s funds store more than 650 works of the artist.

The artworks, which were gathered under one roof, were created during different stages of artist’s career. Therefore, the exhibition makes it possible to track changes in technology and style, to emphasize the expressive alternative of her creative manner that sometimes is inconsistent with the usual concepts of artist’s work. In addition to the paintings, ceramics and albums with pictures of the artist will be displayed at the exhibition ‘Mariya Prymachenko. Boundless’. The exposition featured more than 300 works by an outstanding artist from the collection of the National Museum of Ukrainian Folk Decorative Art.