Maria Prymachenko (1909–1997) is an icon of Ukrainian art. Her oeuvre has helped shape Ukraine’s cultural heritage. The exhibition “A Tiger came into the Garden” at Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw is the first presentation of the artist’s work in Poland of such breadth. The gouaches shown here, from 1982-1994 period, derive from the private collection of Eduard Dymshyts, and are a selection from among hundreds of works by Prymachenko.

For over six decades, Maria Prymachenko created art in the village of Bolotnya in the Polesia region, midway between Kyiv and Chernobyl, an area she never left. She survived the Holomodor, the Second World War, and the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, and lived to see an independent Ukraine. She was “discovered” as a folk artist in 1935 and hired as an embroiderer at the Central Experimental Studio at the Museum of Ukrainian Art on the grounds of the Pechersk Lavra in Kyiv. Her works were shown at the First Republican Exhibition of Folk Art in Kyiv in 1936, and then at the World Expo in Paris in 1937 and in numerous European cities, including Warsaw, Prague and Sofia. She was a painter, embroiderer and ceramicist, and an illustrator of children’s books. She became a professional folk artist. Starting in the 1960s, she led an art school in Bolotnya. She continued creating art until the end of her life.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Prymachenko’s works have taken on particular relevance, in part due to their anti-war message. In 2022 the Local History Museum in Ivankiv, not far from Bolotnya, was burned down, although some of her paintings there were rescued. The Maria Prymachenko exhibition at MSN Warsaw is a continuation of efforts to promote broader knowledge of Ukrainian culture.

In her work, Prymachenko depicted the connections between humanity and nature, drawing on folk traditions of Polesia, rich in symbols and metaphor. She painted people, animals and plants in her everyday surroundings. Her images of the world built on observations of the everyday life of Bolotnya undergo a magical transformation—they do not so much portray reality as undergird it and exert a positive influence on its fate, casting a spell. One of the motifs in her painting is fantastic creatures and birds, both mythological and inspired by pagan beliefs.

Her characteristic bestiary, containing numerous depictions of “humanized creatures” in an archaic composition with heads forward and bodies in profile, comprises numerous elaborate allegories, often expressing moral judgments, mocking human vices, or celebrating the delights of everyday life.

Prymachenko’s recognizable style involves a decorative line, and flat, intense patches of colour. Initially she used watercolours, but in time only gouache (watercolours mixed with chalk). In her work, language is another transformational force. Prymachenko often gave her works poetic, descriptive titles, which sometimes help decipher the paintings, or serve as dedications or wishes, as well as modified quotations from folksongs (“I give sunflowers to those Who love to work on the land And love all people on earth; I give red poppies to people, So they won’t be no-good slobs, But love the holy land And work on it“).

The garden mentioned in the title of the exhibition represents nature, which coexists harmoniously with humans, and in exchange for their work gifts them with all its bounty, while the tiger symbolizes the mysterious, fantastic and wild (“The tiger came into the orchard And rejoiced That the apple trees have borne fruit, Apples aplenty“). It may also point to efforts to represent the element of danger. After the Chernobyl disaster, Prymachenko also created a series of works connected with nuclear threat and war (“Nuclear war – May it be cursed! May people not know it, And shed no tears!“). Through the power of her surrealistic imagination, sense of humour, and also a certain dose of optimism, her works are dominated by a humanistic message and a vision of harmonious coexistence of the human and non-human worlds. Prymachenko’s dream was that “people would live like flowers bloom.”

Curator: Szymon Maliborski; co-curator: Eduard Dymshyts. The exhibition is open until 30.06.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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