Flowers of Ukraine
The printmaker Ira Gvozdyk exhibits in Haus Bacherach in Schwalenberg
From Kiev via Poland and Dortmund to Schwalenberg: this is the path the artist Ira Gvozdyk has taken with her young daughter since the outbreak of the Ukraine war. Now she has been a scholarship holder at the Künstlerhaus in Schwalenberg since September and can return to her artistic work there.
This was made possible by a grant from the Stiftung Kunstfonds for the months of September to December 2022, as well as a subsequent grant from the Landesverband Lippe. Ira Gvozdyk can now stay at Künstlerhaus Schwalenberg for a total of up to one year.
Ira Gvozdyk works in various media, primarily printmaking as well as digital photography. The works of Ira Gvozdyk combine emotional and inner experiences, family history is intertwined with Ukrainian traditions. In doing so, she achieves an illusion of authenticity by combining different printmaking techniques.
On her flight from Ukraine via Poland to Germany starting at the end of February 2022 with her four-year-old daughter, she created the image series “My way to homeland” of more than 400 black and white digital photographs. The artist took these photos from the window of different vehicles: Buses, trains, cars she was traveling with. The photos show nature, roads, industrial areas, and what is striking is that they can be assigned to a specific geographical region – which could also be fiction – only through the designations.
These photos were used to create a colorized series of images, part of which can be seen in the exhibition.
Since the outbreak of the war, Ira Gvozdyk has been working on the series “Flowers of Ukraine” with unfinished embroidered woodcuts of flowers symbolizing the children who died during the war. The series now consists of more than 350 works and, unfortunately, is not yet completed because children are still losing their lives in a cruel war.
The artist would like nothing more than to be able to finish the series – but since this is not possible at the moment, as the war continues, she continues to work on the series during the duration of the exhibition in the exhibition space, the new works are constantly added to the exhibition.
Biography Ira Gvozdyk
1983 * in Kiev, Ukraine
2008-2012: State Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture, Kiev. Institute of Fine Arts and Printmaking with A. Chebykin MD.
2012-2015 Graphic designer at Hubert Burda Media, Kiev.
Since 2015 freelance artist.
2016 Founder of the printmaking workshop NAPAPERI in Kiev.
2017 Founded Gallery 83, Kiev.
2018 Birth of a daughter.
February 2022 Escape from Ukraine.
Since September 2022 scholarship holder of the Landesverband Lippe in the Künstlerhaus Schwalenberg.
Images:
State association chairman Jörg Düning-Gast, artist Ira Gvozdyk and art consultant Dr. Mayarí Granados (Kulturagentur Landesverband Lippe) in front of the Künstlerhaus. Photo: LVL
A work from the series “Flowers of Ukraine” by Ira Gvozdyk, woodcut with embroidery, 2022 -2023. Photo: LVL
