Today I’m celebrating a small anniversary.
It’s not exactly important or interesting to you, but for me, it’s a special date.
No, it’s not the birth of a new child or a happy life in a married family.
This isn’t the date after some surgery and the beginning of a new life, nor is it Valentine’s Day.
It’s not moving to another country or buying a new house.
Although, if you take all of these factors and mix them up and overload them, they all influenced the date I’m talking about today.
Back in 2016, after I completely decided to step away from filmmaking on a film crew and go out on my own and return to professional art education, I chose several directions for myself. One of them was classical landscapes. The second, very expanded and popular, was abstractionism. I’ve explored many styles in this field and love creating my own works.
But today we’ll talk about the third—my favorite. This direction is decorative art and folklore.
It’s as easy as always—I sat down, browsed the styles I liked online, tried them, studied them, practiced, and off I went…
Isn’t that right?
Back in 2016, I couldn’t have imagined that I would feel so comfortable and happy in this field. I couldn’t have imagined that there would be years when I would be captivated by this movement and creatively empowered.
Exactly 10 years ago, I began painting Petrykivka, a traditional Ukrainian style called Petrykivka.
Over the course of 10 long years, I’ve created over 80 works in this style.
This included bold ideas, a search for my own direction, and studying the works of famous Petrykivka artisans.
In 10 years, I didn’t expect such a boom in the popularity of this art form and the multitude of master classes and drawing courses in this style.
Perhaps it all stems from the fact that, while studying this art form, I constantly want to improve myself. Even now, when much time has passed and I return to my first works, I find that they can be improved, and I want to do so. But that’s the beauty and originality of them: they are magnificent in their original form, not in their perfection.
If we take the first year, 2016 in particular—it was a special year.
And it’s special precisely because I didn’t create anything more beautiful or magnificent than that year.
Imagine how painstakingly I worked on each image.
And from that year until 2018, I worked exclusively with oil paints. Acrylic was a cheap material for me. I neglected it.
Only after 2018 did I begin painting with acrylics, and only acrylics, due to health issues and the fact that I didn’t have a separate, air-conditioned, and warm space where I could paint with oils.
I still want to go back. There’s nothing better than painting with oil paints. It’s the perfection of artistic experimentation.
So, back in 2016, the first Petrykivkas were 11 x 14 inches, and there were several of them.
Two of them immediately flew to Europe that year and are now in collections there.
And the rest—you can see them in the video at the link.
This small anniversary is a celebration of creativity and love. It is patience and creativity. It is a splash of color and the realization of ideas. It is a small victory.