Running from March 1 through April 2, this national project features 50 works of art by 25 artists from Ukraine. Official opening from 5-8 PM on Friday March 3, with regular gallery hours posted below.
Gallery Schedule
Public viewing hours by week are listed below. MCAC is a multi-use venue, so pay careful attention to daily times, as these change, due to scheduled events in the space. Exhibitions remain on the walls at all times, and can be viewed during the events, time and space permitting. You can advance weeks by clicking on the arrows by the date span or drop down the date span for a specific week.
About This Exhibit
Diary 10.03.22
Ksenia Datsiuk
How does an artist depict war? It is one thing to photograph the scene before you, but another to sift through information at a distance. The brutality, the irrationality of violence, the destruction. How does one convey the massacre in Bucha or Kherson through a drawing? What forms, colors, images does an artist use?
Some of the artists represented in this exhibit have been documentarians of the daily events of war. Others like Halyna Andrusenko, have turned to a meditative depiction; hers of monuments draped in cloth for protection. Several artists chose to depict instruments of war, scenes of battlefields and destruction using photographs of the conflict. The color of blood brings us close to the violence through the use of vibrant colors. Suffering people, animals and flowers juxtaposed with destructive elements, remind us of the beauty and fragility of all living things.
Each image here, from the 25 artists in Ukraine, tells its own story.
Each one, an attempt by the artist to communicate with viewers like you, thousands of miles away from the event, as it continues to unfold. It is difficult to not react to the artists’ raw emotion…they bring their visions of reality which are different from what soldiers and victims of war experience. They depict the war through their own perspective and imaginations. They are asking you to stand with them for a while.
In return, each work promises to linger with you.
Special Thanks: to our friends at the Madison Community Arts Center and, St. Elizabeth University, Holocaust and Genocide Education Center….for their support to bring this exhibit to New Jersey.
Curators' Statement
This war started in 2014 with Putin’s annexation of Crimea, while the world watched, but his invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, changed the trajectory of many lives in Ukraine and marshaled a global response. When the war started to make international headlines, so many of us asked in disbelief…. “how can this be happening in the 21st century?” As the war unfolded, dark images depicting tanks, missiles, refugees, and a mass grave in Bucha flooded our airwaves. Residents of all ages, men, women, children dead in the streets.
Ukrainian artists are sharing their stories with the world, whether as a means to cope with their changed reality, to process their trauma and emotions, or to find comfort and common ground. We bring this exhibition of works on paper to the States to give these Ukrainian artists a collective place to share their immediate visual response to a terrible war that envelops them and changed the peaceful lives of millions. The show was envisioned by friends who in the spring of 2022, wanted to make available to the American public the artists’ reactions to this horrible war. A group of American-Ukrainian volunteers worked tirelessly during 2022 to bring these works on paper to the United States. Hanna Melnyczuk partnered with our Kyivan artist Halyna Andrusenko, to seek out Ukrainian artists who were creating powerful images. First exhibited in the Boston area, we bring the show to New Jersey, New York City and Chicago, in a year filled with Hope.
Halyna Andrusenko-Ukraine Hanna Melnyczuk-USA Olha Powzaniuk, Co-Curator NJ
Resurrection
Ilya Yarovoy
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