Grandma Mariia

Yurii Kovalenko (1931, Pryluky — 2004, Odesa) was a painter, graphic artist and theatre artist from Odesa who synthesized monumentalism and colours of the “severe style”, decorative scenographic forms and primitivism, vividness and expression. His original style is sometimes called expressive neo-naïve. With the light hand of the journalist Valerii Baranovskyi, the artist was called “a peasant Socrates” who seemed to remotely observe the somewhat slow everyday life of Ukrainian villages, towns and cities of his native Chernihiv or Odesa regions where he spent most of his life. Kovalenko was famous for his aphorisms which he seemed to visualize in his works. Ordinary plots become sublimely carefree and colourfully fair-like in the works of the artist, and are transformed into a holiday that we now so miss.

Photo: Oleksandr Popenko © Mystetskyi Arsenal