On August 28, at 18.00, we invite you to the opening of a personal exhibition of paintings and drawings by Oleksiy Potapenko “My Planet”

The project presents the creative path of the Chernihiv artist from the 1960s to the present day, his formal and plastic searches, the process of forming a cultural identity and his appeal to Ukrainian themes. A qualitatively new creative stage for Oleksiy Potapenko began in the early 1990s. Having been given the opportunity to “sound” in the space of a young independent state, the artist marked it as a “return to Ukraine” and has been working in this direction ever since.

The exhibition project is thematically divided into 5 parts: Ukrainian Constellations, My Land, Ukrainian Symbols, Ukrainian Holidays, and Graphics. Each of them reveals a certain facet of the artist’s interest in the Ukrainian world: everyday life, customs, rituals, traditions, and sacred objects. All of them form a single space of Oleksiy Potapenko’s “planet”. The way the artist is able to combine the cosmos with the intimate offers the viewer a unique way of living the truths that underlie their perception of reality.

Oleksiy Potapenko’s art is cozy naked, it has the same thing on the outside as on the inside: some painfully simple definitions of who we are. You can listen to them, taste them, look at them closely and absorb them, put them in a place where the most important things are kept.

Bright colors and simplified shapes set the tone for the dialog the artist has with the world around him, and this dialog is timeless in its own way. Despite the difficult times, Oleksiy Potapenko’s works invite us to experience reality as a holiday – with a joyful anticipation of a gift. This congratulatory impulse can be renewed and actualized at any period of our life. That is why you can come to Alexei Potapenko’s works to have someone tell you that your world is still intact, that your world still exists, that it is not lost, it is alive, and its life continues.

The project is curated by Lesia Kochergina.

The exhibition will be on display until September 22, 2024.

Place: National Museum of Taras Shevchenko (12 T. Shevchenko Blvd.).