“Folk Contemporary” introduced by Ya Gallery and Rodovid-Gallery with PORTRAIT exposition in autumn 2009 presents a dialogue of naïve/rural and contemporary Ukrainian art. The theme chosen by the project curators Lidia Lykhach and Pavlo Gudimov is LANDSCAPE. The main concept outline of the exposition will not be coexistence of works in the same space based on analogy or juxtaposition as it was in the first exposition. The unfolding of the light day is in the centre of curators’ interest. Light that is absolutely crucial in a folk landscape is inevitably traced in contemporary post-landscape painting. The investigation is built entirely around light.

The naïve/folk part will include author landscape painting (Ganna Gotvianska, Oleksandra Shabatura, Yakiv Yushenko, Panas Yarmolenko, etc.), Poltava craftsmen landscape works from 1920-30ies, whose names we know thanks to the long-term research of Kim Skalatskiy – the former Head of Poltava Art Museum, unsigned masterpieces and works created through stenciling. The naïve part will be represented in the exposition by the exhibits of UCFC Ivan Honchar Museum and Lidia Lykhach private collection.

After numerous statements of “landscape painting death”, which did not eventually occur, landscape painting is actualized in the works of contemporary authors in a new way. Every artist works in the course of his own artistic search: for Yuriy Pikul it is post-realistic urban landscape, Artem Volokitin and Andriy Sagaydakovskiy approach the theme of nature and modern country-side, Mykola Matsenko’s works are social reflection in the context of industrial disaster, Igor Yanovych and Tiberiy Sivalshy transform the landscape into total abstraction…  

“Folk Contemporary. Landscape” is two different stories of one phenomenon that nether the less aren’t isolated: they partly interweave, complement each other and sometimes argue, but, what’s most important, are moving in one direction – following the sun.