Sculptures that "grew up" during the full-scale war

Ya Gallery Kyiv, Imagine point
Ya Gallery Kyiv
Date: 20.04.2023
Address: Khoryva str, 49 B, Kyiv, Ukraine
Country, City: Ukraine, Kiev
Sculptures that "grew up" during the full-scale war, Imagine point
The sculptures that "grew up" during the full-scale war are one of the many tools for living the events and consciously acquiring the local context. And the process of their creation, contemplation, and the impression of smell, visual, and touch can be an emotionally challenging component of this perception. However, exposing one's feelings in the future becomes a unifying category, which Ukrainian society needs today.

The exhibition of the works of the Lviv sculptor Volodymyr Semkiv is ongoing in the Kyiv Art Center "YaGallery". "From the Roots" is a personal exhibition realized as a result of the continuation of the collaboration between curator Pavlo Hudimov and Volodymyr Semkiv, which began a year ago in Lviv during the creation of the group project "New Lviv Sculpture". Then the author showed some of his fresh works, and continued to work in the direction of carved anthropomorphic sculpture from "living" material - wood.

The current exhibition "From the Roots" mainly presents works from 2022 and 2023. According to Volodymyr: "Consciously or unconsciously, they are about this time: the time of losses, and therefore of hope; time of fatigue, and therefore strength; a time of trials, and therefore of faith; a time of fear, and therefore of courage; the time of superpowers, and therefore of victory. It is not possible to do it any other way, because this is the time." However, according to the idea, every year the works can be perceived differently, depending on the context of the events.

This is not a project, selection or series. Here, each work is independent, accurately reproducing a certain state or action and partially differing in the final processing method. Some works are burnt, cracked, charred... At the same time, all of them have a distinct smell and their own gesture, pain, emotion, immortalized in the body of the work.

The visual integrity of the exposition is formed by the working tool, material, and approach of the author. A chainsaw is almost the only tool used by the sculptor in the process of creating works. Old linden is the material, the body, from which Volodymyr carves deeply textured female and male figures. He does not see the need for grinding and additional detailing; everything remains for chainsaw's movement.

The sculptor speaks the allegory of man through the corporeality of wood - plasticity, non-restoration of lost parts, etc. if the incomplete process of the work appeals to events and development, evolution, and forward movement. Physicality, sensuality, naturalness, and space - in this way, it is possible to characterize the flow of sensations after viewing the exhibition.

The sculptures that "grew up" during the full-scale war are one of the many tools for living the events and consciously acquiring the local context. And the process of their creation, contemplation, and the impression of smell, visual, and touch can be an emotionally c component of this perception. However, exposing one's feelings in the future becomes a unifying category, which Ukrainian society needs today.

The exhibition will last until May 21, 2023.

The article has been prepared for publication in Kyiv Daily.

The author of the text
Art historian and the art manager of the Imagine Point Gallery
Inna Kalenska

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