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Sculpture Garden

26 June, 00:00

By Roman YANKEL, The Day Ivan Merdak's wood masterpieces await their turn to be displayed. His works can hardly be mistaken for those of any other artist and even harder to forget. His studio, located in Novy Svit, Ternopil, seems to be eternally inhabited by the spirit of olden times. Two different epochs have come to live under the same roof, embodied in sculptural images of not only noted historical personalities or literary heroes, but also ordinary people who lived and still live in this land.

Ivan Merdak relies on the shape of a tree where every crack, dent or whimsical natural bend prompts his artistic compositions, in which his Lemko cycle, Our Ancestors, occupies the place of honor.

Tieri Vergelen, a noted Belgian sculptor, after visiting Merdak's studio, said, "Merdak is a real discovery! To make sculptures he shifts natural forms, rendering them mobile. We have a new science here. I have never seen such wonderful things."

The sculptor managed to avoid persecution and purges in Soviet Ukraine. Communist authorities enjoyed being asked to help and eventually did. Ivan Merdak expects no help from the relabeled former Communists currently in power. His works, nearly 500 wood sculptures, can been seen in the yard of his old village home. Anyone can come and watch him turn a piece of wood into an image, and even ask him for a lesson. Foreign tourists visiting Ternopil always include his studio in their itinerary and it has been visited by Ukraine's prominent artists and politicians, who agree that the makeshift museum is unique and that the owner needs help, but they go no farther than promises.

A garden of sculpture adorns the yard of Merdak's home cum studio, with trees in human form.

Ternopil

Newspaper output №:

№24, (1999)

Section

Culture