Tag: Art Etobicoke

Announce

Helen Polishuk
My Petrykivka from past year

I am pleased to announce all the changes that accompany this month.

Sometimes you shouldn’t stir up the past, even if it’s not that long ago. The page is closed. We live and work. Announcement and planning for the coming months.


Not everything in our lives is so neglected, so now an announcement of news from me.
Firstly, I want to congratulate everyone who reads me on International Mother Language Day.

Still, why celebrate it?
If humanity had not created writing and language for communication, we would hardly have had global communication between nations today. And although we are all representatives of different nationalities today, we are united by knowledge of the English language, which the majority of us speak.
And if we don’t know this language, then our circle of communication is greatly narrowed. Of course, we can use the services of translators, but this makes communication more difficult and difficult.
Therefore, I only welcome learning new languages as an opportunity to expand my abilities.
The past week was very active and I can’t boast to you that I painted or exhibited anything in galleries. I don’t have enough energy and time. I’ll try to catch up and present you with new works.

My immediate plans include a return to icon painting and the final stages in the production of icons. An announcement of these actions will be coming soon.
After the seminar that took place last week, I am preparing to submit my visions for planning assistance and developing art in my city. Here, I would be happy to listen to your ideas. You can send me and enter into a chat with me on the FB page

https://www.facebook.com/helenpolishukart

where I have been publishing my work for the last two years.
Please, I will be glad. Believe me, I check and respond to emails on that page.

The next point is that I received a lot of offers, both related and not to the last year of my activity. And this is both the creation of films and the organization and implementation of projects.
Will I continue them in the future? Let’s take a look, study the offers and choose what suits me and what I need.

Still, the emphasis is on completing the creation and printing of the book and continuing to study the history of art and searching for points of joint projects in this direction. The choice is aimed at developing programs and projects in this area and related.

The next thing I continue to be interested in is the creation of new forms of selling works from creative people. Well, something that has not yet been created.
This is where I am interested in the geniuses of our planet and their clubs.
After all, I already emphasized at the seminar that creative people are divided into (my opinion) two groups. The first group is absolutely creative people who cannot sell. They can only create. There are many of them. They are passionate about the creation process. And that’s all. There are always such people someone must support and sell their product. It could be an organization, a gallery, a restaurant or a government agency, anyone. Believe me, this is a big win, you can live and make money on this, and an example of this is the same Van Gogh or Picasso, and even Mozart , who during their lifetime did not sell enough, but created a lot. And now their works are wonderfully used by their heirs and generations.
Second people are managers of their creative self.

Unfortunately or fortunately, there are fewer such people and they can be called blacksmiths of their idea, their craft.

They create, analyze, select, study, accumulate and implement.
So it’s no longer a secret for a modern artist that it’s simply impossible to live off drawing alone.

Today you need to work at a surviving job and then relax and draw. And what’s new is that the artist himself must now learn to have many computer skills in order to be able to sell and create himself.

Now we look ten years into the future, the conditions of survival will become even worse. And all this is due to the rapid development of digital.

I am optimistic about these next ten years, because I don’t need any more for my activities, then it will become more and more difficult for me to manage myself. That’s what I’m leading to? I’m leading to the fact that my stage of accumulating my artistic works has almost passed and I am pleased to enter the period of implementing these works, working on transferring my skills to students.
And here is a new announcement. I continue my mentoring work. This is not only icon painting, which I mentioned above. This is also the creation of maser box offices and workshops.

And the last announcement.

Since I have already entered the senior category, I will be happy to celebrate my last visit.

On February 21st, I hosted monthly Seniors’ Advisory Group meeting where I learned a lot of interesting and important things for me as a resident of Etobicoke.

To be continued. Stay, don’t switch

Interesting East

Helen Polishuk

In the piggy bank of every artist, if he constantly works, collection after collection is created and this is not just a bunch of paintings.
I don’t stop being interested in trying a new style or getting carried away by some direction: everything is interesting to me: painting and decorative arts, ceramics and mosaics. And I want to get acquainted with everything and learn it manually. I really love the society of artists and always welcome new acquaintances. A few days ago such an acquaintance took place thanks to the society in which I am.

Her name is Meryam Ashan, a beautiful Iranian name and she carries the personification of beauty and femininity. She also brought a bunch of her paintings to our meeting and showed them. Her style is the traditional Iranian style of creating miniatures. And when she showed her works, the artist from Pakistan just jumped with admiration, because this is a very popular artistic style of miniatures, known and traditional for the East (China, Pakistan, Iran and India).

Example of miniature

The style means the creation of miniature compositions united by one meaning. So, before us was a picture in which the artist herself is presented in the center, and around her there are cats in different poses. And they are all unique, bright and in different positions.

Persian tradition miniature from 19 c.

Her miniatures were beautiful. She stood up and walked over to the switched-on computer, typed in a page and showed her her first work.
The work was created in a graphic black and white style: an image of her, movement around her and a running horse nearby.
“This is a horse. This symbol has a very interesting meaning in Iranian mythology and I, as an artist, personify myself with a horse.”

The Persian horse has held a place of great prominence and prestige in Iranian culture throughout its rich history. Symbolising power, loyalty, and grace, these horses played a vital role in the ancient Persian empires.

Ancient Warriors and Horse Bas-Relief: A Testament to the Achaemenid Empire’s Military Prowess

It’s interesting to meet an artist this way.
You will agree that each artist, depicting his works, brings a special culture and traditions, plus a huge amount of knowledge accumulated over the years.

PETRYKIVKA BY HELEN POLISHUK

Helen Polishuk

I am pleased to announce that last week the opening of an exhibition January 18,2024 in Toronto was a success, where two of my works in the Petrykivka style were presented among the works. The exhibition was organized by Art Etobicoke, together with QuardReal and Art Council Toronto. The exhibition shows the winners of the competition, immigrants from Europe, and is called ROOTS. A lot of information about the exhibition, which will take place for a month(up to February 22,2024), is published on the city’s websites. I would like to say that the atmosphere of the exhibition was wonderful and meeting with creative people is always a great success:LORETTA FAVERI,CHRISTINA YARMOL,ALEXANDRA IORGU,FRANCESCO BORI,DARIA BEER,VLADIMIR TOPAL,DANA SEWELL,SZENDE TUNDERLIGETI and me,HELEN POLISHUK.

Two of my works were selected from Petrykivka, which I exhibited for the first time for a Canadian audience.

This painting for sale

Petrykivka,winner jury competition

It so happened that upon arrival in Canada, I again began to draw and create my own paintings. I painted to order, signed up for competitions, paid for them and received adrenaline, supported and I went to exhibitions of other artists and realized that I was drawn inside to painting flowers in tradition ukrainian style, from which my artistic creativity began. So I returned to painting Petrykivka. The first paintings were made with oil paint, this had difficulties, since in winter they did not dry well. But I continued to create and collected separately, as a collection. So, depending on the year, sometimes 4, and sometimes 10 Petrykivka came out a year.

Not a single one of the paintings I created repeated the second. And the society of Ukrainian artists, the creators of Petrykivka, inspired me .I even took a course from them then and practiced with an outstanding artist, Galuna Nazarenko, to whom I am very grateful for her mentorship. I was so captivated by this skill that I continued to create it, despite other competitions. And I did it without much advertising. So Somewhere in 2020, I already collected about 50 works and I opened my website on Facebook,

https://www.facebook.com/helenpolishukart

which was called CanadaPetrykivka. (This is my answer to some why I put such a hashtag). Last year, in 2023 ,I decided to exhibit my works at the ROOTS competition, I sent 5 arts and 2 won and are presented in the gallery QUARDREAL at Cloverdale Mall, Etobicoke. This kind of interesting news happens to people who create a lot and love creativity very much.Today both works are presented for viewing and for sale.

I continue to work and, already inspired by the opening of the exhibition and meeting creative people like me, a new work has already been created, which I will undoubtedly publish in the next post.
And for my admirers and envious people, I offer you this tea.

This tea contains mint and helps you relax and not care about the troubles that happen. This winter tea is called WINTER EDITION HIVERNALE and is sold in our supermarkets in winter and helps to get what you want from the impersonality of unforeseen problems.


Let’s drink tea and relax

I hasten to meet you again, my readers.

Helen Polishuk

The year flew by quickly and intensely, and now it’s December. Last month of the year. As always, let’s sum up the history of plans for the next year.

Summing up the results of the year, I confess that the year had everything – losses, failures, new trials, rest and travel, and of course awards.

Of the losses associated with this terrible year, these are the losses of people close to me. I was left without my mother, and although she died after a long illness, but I miss her so much. I left my parents very early and began to live on my own. Therefore, my parents were a place for me to hurry back to, like in childhood. However, everything changes. The loss of loved ones is always painful.

The war that is now on the territory of my country also affects. At the beginning, I couldn’t get used to it, I suffered from insomnia, called my friends a lot, tried to help, volunteer. Later I tried to create conditions when my real help would be useful. But you can’t get used to the war and I, like many people, dream that the war ends.

I spent three months of spring in the international project “Children War Ukraine”. This is an online project that connected children and is aimed at developing their abilities and desire for creativity. I created videos for poems written by children. The project helped popularize the creativity of Ukrainian children.

In the spring, a significant event was the organization of the performance “Mazeppa” at the Zahrava Theater in Toronto. I am glad that the theatre, despite many difficulties, has released a performance and I am doubly glad that several strong participants have been added to its group. I wish them further growth and success in their difficult work.

Throughout the year I drew a lot and this could not but affect my work.
As quarantine restrictions eased and galleries began to open, I became a participant of many with great enthusiasm.
Pictures created by me over the past year can be viewed on social networks.
There is a page on facebook created by me

https://www.facebook.com/helenpolishukart

Please, subscribe to it so that you are always aware of my new work.

From the latest news related to galleries, I am participating in the exhibition, which will be held from December 6 to December 24 2022 at Cloverdale Mall Etobicoke Ontario.This is an exhibition of works that have passed the competitive selection of the jury of Art Etobicoke. It is a pleasure for me to present two works there, which are very dear to me. I publish them here with a little descriptions about:

I exhibited as the best work of this year my painting POPPIES, created in the spring of 2022 and dedicated to all the soldiers who died in the war. This is the grief of mothers, this is the pain of wives and children, this is the groan of the land on which the war is going on. The picture was created in memory of the dead soldiers, whose names will remain in our memory.

Poppies (2022)

Materials: acrylic on canvas

The second painting presented at the exhibition is a painting MY DREAM created in 2017 and this is my calling card.This painting from her creation and during gallery life, the painting has an interesting history.
For the first time it was exhibited at an online gallery in the UK. Six months later, I stopped working with the gallery and the painting moved online to France, to an online gallery(she is lucky, she moved without problems and payment in the Internet space).

My Dream (2017)

Materials:oil on canvas

The painting was created very quickly ,like it was drawn by itself. I don’t remember exactly, but the idea came instantly: a couple of strokes, oil sketches, then quickly quickly and by nightfall it was almost created. After drying I just tweaked the shadows a little. It felt like she wanted to be created by me. This happens with artists. Going back to 2017, like this 2022, it was very creative year and a lot of paintings were created.

Having got to the selection of the jury, the picture had to be framed and organized for the exhibition. And here is the story again. I looked for many frames, but none of them matched the color or size. Already tired of searching and giving up ready-made frames, I decided to order at the store, but it was closed there. I returned to the search for ready-made ones and an hour before submitting paintings to the exhibition. I found a frame that not only displayed the depth of the picture in golden color, but also decorated it and added value to it. The picture came to life. This is a real miracle.

And last painting with award:

Water Element(2022)

Materials: acrylic on canvas

Describing the last awards of the year, I want to note another victory in the selection of banners by the jury for the city of Pickering. This painting is especially dear to me, as it is a symbol of the unity of Ukrainian and Canadian art.
In this picture, which I specially created for this competition, the element of water is in its design.

The city of Pickering is located on the coast of Ontario and has a nuclear power plant. It depends on the element of water. Water is a symbol of the life of this city. Therefore, it is depicted in the center of the painting.

Envelops its flowers, painted in the Petrykivka style.

In the style that I paint, continuing the old Ukrainian traditions. And it is so well combined. It was noticed by the jury and selected for a banner.

Now my work in the coming year will hang on the main street of the city and decorate and delight.

That’s all news for today.
Don’t leave, there’s more to come soon

Helen

Dec 5 2022