This exhibition will take place in the heart of the Technopole of Sophia-Antipolis (06) at the restaurant “Les Terrasses d’Antipolis”, 300 route des Crรชtes. The opening will be on Friday, May 12 at 6:30 PM.
The Ukrainian Culture Center of the South of France and the “Princesse de Kiev” Gallery in Nice have partnered with Ambre International to present, from May 3 to May 19, 2006, a selection of the best contemporary Ukrainian painters, already recognized (Oleksandr DUBOVIK, Oleksandr MELNYKOV, Serhiy MARUS, Oksana LEVCHYSHYNA, Helen ILICHOVA) or very promising (Yuriy PETRENKO, Dmytro DOBROVOLSKY, Yevgen NESTERENKO).
Mr. Renรฉ Guerra (international expert on Russian and Ukrainian painting) will present a perspective of the major developments in 20th-century Ukrainian painting and its current trends.
Miss Marie-Claire Fontaine (professor of Art History at the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis) will give her views on the works exhibited.
Furthermore, we will have the fortune to have among us two Ukrainian painters, Oleksandr Melnykov and Yevgen Nesterenko. The latter, one of the best European portraitists, will give us a demonstration of his talents.
Exhibiting Ukrainian artists:
O. Dubovik: Life is energy. The energy of despair and the joy of movement are at the center of human behavior. The surface of an O. Dubovik canvas is a field bearing all these charges of energy.
Y. Petrenko: The cascades of colors in Yuriy Petrenko’s canvases remind one of free-jazz improvisations. They bring boundless joy and surround the objects around us with a warm and harmonious atmosphere.
O. Levchyshyna: The main hero of Oksana Levchyshyna’s paintings is light, the sole witness of a time that has its own laws and its life. A life where shadows become women, where grasses remind us of nymphs. They travel from one painting to another, we want to believe it, but in fact, everything is an illusion.
S. MARUS: The interpenetration of different eras and cultures in the works of Serhiy Marus take us into a world where emptiness does not exist, in a world everyone would like to be part of, in a world where borders disappear because the language of art is the universal language, which knows neither time nor space.
Serhiy Marus is an artist who has become an explorer of time, of ancient humanity’s history, and of what unites all our cultures.
D. Dobrovolsky: His paintings resemble French pointillism, but with the Dnieper River and the monastery towers of Lavra in Kiev.
The mosaic of colors, light, and layers gives the impression that the painter is building the house – layer by layer, touch by touch. His petals of paint build the sky and the earth up to the invisible and solid pole that holds all the fragments of paint. And this house will live a very long time, because it is built by a professional who has conveyed his vision of an idyllic world and original harmony.
O. Melnykov: History and familiar faces inspire the imagination of O. Melnykov. The rigidity of his graphic line serves as support for the implementation of reserved, highly sought-after colors, where, in the end, everything is softened.
The system of glances of the characters passes in front of the spectator, only touching us indirectly. Inside each composition, there is a precise logic of glances, gestures, poses. This creates a sensation of movement of faces, as if in a slow dance in the manner of madrigals.
