Colours of Ukraine: artistry rooted in the landscape of the nation

Colours of Ukraine: artistry rooted in the landscape of the nation

By James Brewer

The prolific painter Sviatoslav Barabash takes delight in portraying the landscape, both natural and industrial, of his surroundings, imbuing his canvases with a determinedly optimistic outlook. Such a perspective is being stretched to its limits by the turbulence that afflicts Ukraine.

Barabash is one of 40 artists whose work has recently been on show at the Decorative Art Fair’s autumn 2024 edition in London.

He painted Summer in Odesa in 2021 showing the bustling port, now still busy but with the long coastline constantly on alert for Russian attack. For the artist it was ”my favourite place to walk — before the war.”

Collectively at the fair the ensemble was brought under the banner Colours of Ukraine, which was also the title of an individual 1972 painting by Kyiv-born Aleksandr Sulimenko. Sulimenko’s Colours of Ukraine is an exuberant landscape of golden fields, freely brushed and with a yellow that would have gladdened the heart of Vincent Van Gogh, whose September 1889 Wheatfield with a Reaper suggests a similar palette, including magical aquamarine/violet hills.

These fascinating paintings are being brought to the notice of collectors in the UK and far beyond by John Barkes, a dealer specialising in output from Ukraine and Russia. He has a new collection of works for sale following his recent visits to Ukraine finding canvases that were produced during several decades.

Dr Barkes is pictured here with the enchanting oil painting Village Girl, Carpathia, from the 1960s, lovingly elaborated by Kyiv-born Svetlana Bondarenko (1935-96) who is noted for her sympathetic illustrations of village life and portraits of country people of southwestern Ukraine. The region of Transcarpathia which borders Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania. Svetlana was an Honoured Artist of Ukraine, member of the USSR Academy of Arts and member of the National Union of Artists.

Barabash, born in the Black Sea city, contends that art has the power to change lives. His oil canvases display an impressive command of detail, lush vegetation and an understanding of the maritime heft of the seaport – which it must be remembered can handle 40m tonnes of cargo a year over its more than 50 berths. A book illustrator and expert in digital painting, he revels in vivid colour, and his work has won warm appreciation in many countries.

Another evocative title, Summer on the Black Sea, is bestowed on a painting in oil on board by Nadezhda Kompaniets- Kiyanchenko (1913-2003). A panorama of red-streaked clouds and menacing rocks is viewed from a picturesque promenade. Born in a village in the Kyiv region, Nadezhda worked in many genres: portrait, landscape, still life, and thematic. Like millions of others, she had an unsettled wartime, moving with her husband Yuri to Lviv, later to the Czech Republic, and then to Austria. Yuri was conscripted for the Soviet forces, and they lost touch until she found him in a camp for internees in a Hungarian town on the border with what is now the Czech Republic. It was December 1945 before the couple could make a new home in Kyiv, where she continued her studies at the Kyiv Art Institute.

A respectful representation of an industrial worker is Maritime Painter which was made by Igor Belyak, who was born in 1959 in Kyiv.  In his painting on canvas from the 1980s, he focuses on a man balanced on a sling, presumably on the starboard of a vessel.  It is an example of Belyak’s fascination with the workings of ports. He is also known as a film artist.

A charming scene in loosely brushed style Helping with the Homework, was painted in the 1960s by Anna Gurevich-Yukhno ((1920-c 2000). On a bright sunny day, a (grandfather?) is keeping a fond eye on a young student. Anna was born in Zaporizhye in southeast Ukraine and studied at the Kyiv Art Institute. Her Evening at the Campsite, 1960s, is set in a soft twilight with two women absorbed in sketching by the Black Sea.

Other artists featuring in the latest collection of Dr Barkes include Ivan Dzyuban (1923-2008), born in the Donetsk region; Vitaly Shepetovsky (1927-1988) from Kyiv; Vasyl Sabov, born 1938; Aleksandr Vozyanov, born 1940; and Nikolay Bortnikov (1916-1997) born in Kazakhstan.

Dr Barkes wrote in his latest catalogue: “The replenishment of stock from Ukraine in this time of conflict is complex and intermittent, but it has been maintained.” All 40 pieces on show at the fair were bought in Ukraine in 2024. Through his commercial activities, the dealer has been supporting friends in Kyiv, Odesa, Chernihiv and Kharkiv.

Of the bi-annual Decorative Fair, Dr Barkes wrote: “I love this fair. The Decorative Fairs in Battersea have for a very long time been among the high points of my year, the best and most congenial place to meet clients and friends.”