Ukrainian Art Exhibit: "Don't Close Your Eyes"

In reaction to the horrific events in Ukraine, we are asking you to help in any way that you can. Everyone can be a small part of the solution in Ukraine.

An exhibit is being organized, -Don’t Close Your Eyes- which will take place at the New Art Center in Newton, MA and Gimshaw- Gudewicz Art Gallery at Bristol County Community College in Fall River, Newton MA, and Bristol County Community College in Fall River. Other locations for 2023 are being explored in NY, NJ and Chicago.

To defray the start-up costs for putting this show together (shipping$, framing etc) this campaign was started, so please consider making a donation. Every dollar helps! Please pass this request along to your network of friends.

Slava Ukraini !

Heroim Slava !

Additional info about the Exhibit

My name is Hanna Melnyczuk, and I'm a first-generation Ukrainian American artist. In partnership with Halyna A., an artist from Kyiv, Ukraine, we have curated an exhibit of 25 Ukrainian artists from various parts of Ukraine. All the pieces are responses to the war Ukraine. We believe this is an important exhibition and we would like to provide the US public with the opportunity to see how artists in Ukraine are depicting the horrors of war. We have secured pro bono art spaces at the New Art Center in Newton and Gimshaw Gudewicz Art Gallery at Bristol County Community College in Fall River, MA. We are actively applying for spaces in New York City and Chicago.

The proceeds from the exhibits will be: 50% of the sale price will go to the artist, and 50% will go to a humanitarian organization such as: https://prytula.org and https://savelife.in.ua/ . Both of these recommended to me by family in Lviv.

The costs associated with an exhibit include

 

Curatorial Statement

 

February 24, Putin's invasion of Ukraine changed the trajectory of many lives. Including my own. As a Ukrainian American artist,

my work has dealt with the theme of my Ukrainian heritage throughout my career. After visiting Ukraine and living

there for four months in 1991, I felt very close to the people and the world my parents left in 1945. Some of my work represents the

influence of this experience. Most recently, my art career changed from working on large portraits to picture books for children.

Writing and illustrating my own books and beginning to look for representation have become a new journey in my career as an artist.

Then on February 24, I heard of the war in Ukraine....with absolute disbelief. Like most of the world, I asked, "How can this

happen in the 21st century?" A few days after the war started, the images in my mind changed from colorful representations of a

child's world to darker images depicting tanks, missiles, refugees and a mass grave in Bucha. These images continued to appear in

my mind. Soon I began to look for like-minded artists and found many in Ukraine responding to the war with powerful imagery.

These images were being shown in Ukraine and in some parts of Europe and I envisioned bringing them to the US, so I partnered

with Halyna A. With her help, we sought artists whose works resonated with us regarding the images they were making in

response to the horrific violence and destruction that the war was bringing to a peaceful country.

Many artists we chose were producing small drawings, while others were working on larger pieces. We decided to focus on bringing

smaller works on paper to the US for practical reasons. We are very eager to share these tragic, powerful and documentary images that address the war brought to Ukraine by Russia. Some of the works are more specific other are more universal and can be viewed as addressing other wars and acts of violence, as does Picasso's famous painting Guernica. 

 Each artist brings their vision of this tragedy.

 

Hanna Melnyczuk

Instagram: Hanna_artist_42