“Let Us Be…”

The National Museum of Ukrainian Traditional Decorative Art recently hosted a solo exhibit of Marko Halenko, a well-known Kyiv-based ceramic artist, author of the Emblem of Kyiv’s Pecherskyi District, member of the National Union of Ukrainian artists, winner of the first prize at the ARGILA International Festival of Sculpture, Ceramics, and Pottery in Roumazieres-Loubert, France.

The cheerful and life-asserting name of the exhibit, which can also mean “Here’s to you” in Ukrainian (the maestro recently celebrated his 60th anniversary), excellently reflects the nature of Halenko who has created an art world of his own, which beams joy and harmony. What impressed the viewers of the exposition (the exhibit curator was Iryna Beketova, in charge of the museum’s earthenware collection; the exposition author was Olha Novoderezhkina, in charge of the museum’s exhibition section) was the artist’s serene and good-humored artistic talent which allowed him to improvise so cheerfully on the motifs of Ukrainian sayings, fairytales, and songs (decorative sculptures Cat the Fisher, Horses on the Run, Baby Angels; pictures Cheerful Rooster, Kindred Spirits) and to fantasize so wittingly on the themes of Ancient Greek and Slavic mythology (3D compositions A Scythian and Herodotus, The Three Graces, Pegasuses; relief graphic-ceramic images Bacchus and An Amazon). This proves that Halenko is a rare master of really charming and carefree ceramic oeuvres. And the author himself, with an imposing stature and an ever-smiling face, resembles Dionysus, the Ancient Greek god of fertility and winemaking, with all the merriments that this implies. “Marko loves life in all of its manifestations. He lives radiantly, behaves kindheartedly, and creates to people’s joy. The artist’s sunshine nature attracts a lot of friends and admirers of his talent, creating an atmosphere of warmth, love, respect, and good will,” exhibit curator Iryna BEKETOVA said.

Halenko is undoubtedly a person and an artist with a powerful charisma. He is a philosopher and a lyricist in art – the proof of this is such figurative sculptural works of the past few years as The Flight of Dreams, A View from the Future, The Mystery of Other Worlds, Ocean, and Three Birds. What also arouses interest are his most recent abstract decorative compositions “Petroglyphs,” “Contradictions,” “A Model of the Universe,” “The Elements,” and “Dialog,” which have a geometrical visual plastic shape on the borderline of the real and unreal worlds.

All the works suggest the strong hand of a professional who has undergone an academic training. It is no wonder because Halenko gained higher education at the Odesa Kostiantyn Ushinsky State Pedagogical University’s Art and Graphics Department (taught in specialty by Oleksandr Pysmychenko at the sculpture studio). Since 1978, when he took the office of a designer at the Kyivproject main directorate, he has closely cooperated with architects and, as a graphic artist, with Kyiv’s leading publishing houses. In 1988 Marko was a co-founder of the new association “Honchari” on Andriivskyi Uzviz and in 1994, at the head of a team of like-minded people, he opened “Griffon,” a gallery of architectural and art ceramics, on Kyiv’s Kostiolna Street. Besides, he has pedagogical experience: he has been teaching children at the Taras Shevchenko High School for over 20 years.

The works of Halenko, who has taken part in about 90 national and international exhibits and symposiums, are kept in museums, private collections, and galleries in Ukraine and abroad (Denmark, Spain, Italy, Canada, Germany, Poland, Russia, the US, France, the Czech Republic).

“Every artist lives in a somewhat limited space. But nobody has power over his thoughts, fantasy, and oeuvre. Nobody is in power to forbid him to travel imaginarily in time and space, to other worlds and dimensions, to the universe he himself created. I have one, and I am happy that it is a world of love. My credo is to create cheerfully and lovingly,” Halenko maintains.

Halenko seems to be a “volcano man,” for he is capable of “erupting” the inexhaustible energy of creation in the art of artistic ceramics, and he is calling on us: let us remain our own selves in both art and life and, first of all, let us be Ukrainians – cheerful, in spite of all difficulties and problems, sincere, self-ironical, and friendly to people.