Last night I went to the Saatchi Gallery for the launch of "In our paradise...", an exhibition of recent photography from the Ukraine, curated by Galina Skliarenko. The exhibition takes its name from a line in a poem by Taras Shevchenko, the 19th century Ukrainian poet and celebrates the 200th anniversary of his birth.
The photographs exhibited are by five Ukrainian artists:
Oleksandr Babak and Anatol Stepanenko
Victor Maruschenko
Tiberiy Silvashi
Anna Voitenko
and reflect a modern Ukraine and its current challenges.
The photograph by Victor Maruschenko, from the Dream Land series, (below) depicts a traditional Ukrainian landscape.....the fields, the building in the background with the little Russian style onion dome.
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| by Victor Marushchenko - Dream Land series |
I was also struck by his view of Chernobyl (below).
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| by Victor Marushchenko - Chernobyl |
The Soil (Terra/Fundamental) series by Tiberiy Silvashi is a group of photographs of soil from the Ukraine (1 example below). Looking at them, I thought how symbolic and significant the soil, the earth itself, often is to people who love the land they live in.
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| by Tiberiy Silvashi - (Terra/Fundamental) series |
The above are some examples from an interesting and well thought out collection. The exhibition runs until 3rd August.