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Aug 21, 2023

Eye On Art: ‘Don’t Close Your Eyes’ a chance for Ukrainian artists to address war

A drawing by Olga Zaremba in ‘Don’t Close Your Eyes’ at UML’s University Gallery. (Photo courtesy UML Art & Design Dept.) ‘Butterflies,’ a watercolor by Don Sullivan, to be part of the silent auction

A drawing by Olga Zaremba in ‘Don’t Close Your Eyes’ at UML’s University Gallery. (Photo courtesy UML Art & Design Dept.)

‘Butterflies,’ a watercolor by Don Sullivan, to be part of the silent auction at the Brush’s ‘Still Summer’ party on Sept. 7. (Photo courtesy the Brush)

'Stone From the North' by Revika Oleksii in ‘Don’t Close Your Eyes” at UML’s University Gallery. (Photo courtesy UML’s Art and Design Dept.)

Artists are making their voices heard through their art as the war between Russia and Ukraine rages on.

And galleries at UMass Lowell and Fitchburg State University showcase that artwork in new exhibitions to make viewers sit up and take notice.

The University of Massachusetts Lowell Department of Art and Design presents “Don’t Close Your Eyes: Ukrainian Artists Respond to the War.”

The exhibit is on view in the University Gallery, 870 Broadway Street, in Lowell through September 16. All are invited to a welcome back event for the Art & Design Department on Wednesday, September 13, 11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

The show’s co-curator Hanna Melnyczuk, a senior adjunct art professor at UML, will speak in the University Gallery at noon.

Jointly curated by Melnyczuk, a Ukrainian-American artist, and Halyna Andrusenko, an artist from Kyiv, the UMass Lowell iteration of this traveling exhibition features works by 27 artists from various regions of Ukraine, created in response to the war that began Feb. 24, 2022.

Art ranges from drawings, paintings, and lithographs to a 6-minute video, “Protected,” in which Andrusenko echoes the wrapping of monuments in Kyiv by wrapping her parents in cloth.

On the effect that the war has made on her life and artistic practice, Melnyczuk writes, “The week before the full-scale war in Ukraine began, I was working on images for a children’s book. As war unfolded, the images in my mind’s eye shifted from colorful representations of a child’s world to troubling depictions of tanks, missiles, refugees, and mass graves. I began a series of drawings in reaction to the war. I also came across the works of like-minded artists in Ukraine, responding to the war with powerful imagery. These images were being exhibited in Ukraine and parts of Europe. With a vision of bringing them to the US, I struck up a partnership with Halyna Andrusenko, an artist from Kyiv. With her help, we sought artists whose works resonated for us in terms of the images they were making in response to the horrific violence and destruction that the war was bringing to a peaceful country.”

“Don’t Close Your Eyes” features a broad spectrum of powerful work in response to the war in Ukraine. It is a testament to the power of the human spirit, and the abilities of artists to synthesize powerful emotions and responses into works that transcend boundaries of time, geography, and space.

Featured artists include Halyna Andrusenko, Ksenia Datsiuk, Nastya Didenko, Mitya Fenechkin, Alisa Gots, Evgen Klimenko, Natalia Kurnosova, Lena Kurzel, Inga Levi, Ave Libertatemaveamor, Anton Logov, Rostyslav Luzhetskyy, Hanna Melnyczuk, Danylo Movchan, Anzhelika Palyvoda, Oleksii Pavlusenko, Oleksii Revika, Vladyslav Riaboshtan, Olesia Rybchenko, Valeriia Rybchenko, Andrij Roik, Zakhar Shevchuk, Olena Shtepura, Karina Synytsia, Nickita Tsoy, Ilya Yarovoy, and Olga Zaremba.

Gallery hours are Monday-Wednesday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Thursday 10 a.m.-8 p.m., and Friday 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday hours, 10 a.m.-2 p.m., resume after Labor Day.

Meanwhile, Melnyczuk’s powerful drawings inspired by the war in Ukraine are on display this fall at Fitchburg State University’s Hammond Hall Art Gallery in a solo show with the same title – “Don’t Close Your Eyes” – as at UML.

It is on view in the Hammond Hall Art Gallery Tuesday, Sept. 5-Sunday, Oct. 15. A reception with the artist is at 3:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 21 at the gallery, located in Hammond Hall, 160 Pearl St.

Melnyczuk created the drawings to show her reactions to the war in the country that her parents left in 1944. They show her struggle to understand the unfathomable acts of war that fill her mind.

Admission is free and open to all. Learn more about Fitchburg State’s cultural offerings at fitchburgstate.edu/centerstage.

STILL SUMMER: There’s still time to RSVP to the Brush Art Gallery’s “Still Summer” fundraiser cocktail party, 5:30-7:30 p.m., on Thursday, Sept. 7, at Fuse Bistro, 45 Palmer St., Lowell. Featured are special hors d’oeuvres, a cash bar, and a silent auction of watercolors by Brush associate artist Don Sullivan. Proceeds help fund the Studio Artist Diversity Initiative. $50 at www.thebrush.org/events.htm.

Nancye Tuttle’s email is [email protected].

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