Painting
…I create a bridge for a new interpretation of images…
Yana Hudzan
The COVID-19 pandemic and protracted lockdowns have changed the pace of people’s lives, restricting movement and communication with other people, nature and new locations.
I began to pay special attention to a socially and epidemiologically vulnerable social group – Ukrainian grandmothers, who were left face to face with the pandemic, social isolation and economic crisis.
#365daysafter art project
Eventually, the artist’s gaze narrowed from a panorama of the globalized world to a narrow frame of a local neighborhood, his own apartment or even a room, where the window and screen of a smartphone served as a porthole to the outside world.
My area of observation and research, as an artist, has simultaneously narrowed and deepened. I began to pay special attention to a socially and epidemiologically vulnerable social group – Ukrainian grandmothers, who were left face to face with the pandemic, social isolation and economic crisis. I am interested in Ukrainian grandmothers as a unique Slavic matriarchal archetype of a guardian woman. By changing our point of view, we cease to perceive them as a purely personal family history or as a ballast of society. Instead, we begin to rediscover the matriarchal archetype of Ukrainian queens. In my works, I often refer to the image of Queen Elizabeth II, which is both a flag and a manifesto that unites all Britons. Combining folk motifs and techniques with modern ones (acrylic, oil, spray, embroidery on canvas) I create a bridge for a new interpretation of images.
During the coronavirus pandemic Berehyni were at risk, which only exacerbated my need to record my observations.
We can observe this image in our grandmothers. Anxious, responsible and stern on the one hand and humorous, mischievous and carefree on the other. The image of such an ambiguous grandmother, who, on the one hand, takes care of herself and wears a mask, worries about herself and her relatives in the Ukrainian realities of life. The optimistic side of her personality emerges when the worries go away, and you can afford to be a sincere child, when the mask can be removed in every sense. It is about two sides of the same personality that cannot be separated.
Apparently, everyone has an grandma neighbor, who keeps the whole apartment building under her constant supervision. She sees who came and went out, as a surveillance camera, invariably on a bench or behind the tulle of a first-floor window, knows everything about everyone and even sees the future. The image of Argus (the Panoptes) – a character of Greek mythology, a stooky guardian, who even in a dream kept half his eyes open.
The image of the same three old women on the bench, who know everything about their neighbors. On the other hand, it is a symbol of stability, thrift, inherent in the era of this generation. Each of them, hiding from prying eyes, saves something: in a pocket, bag or in a characteristic checkered bag. Berehyni can also be interpreted as talismans of the family and the nation. Embroidered faces refer us to Motanka Dolls – Ukrainian traditional talismans.
Art project #365daysafter