Paper art

After walking a few steps up an ordinary apartment building’s stairs and ringing a bell that hangs beside a quite traditional door and chimes pleasantly, one crosses the threshold and finds oneself inside the other world, vanity-free, pure and kind universe that has been created by Tetiana Kalita, the muse of the Kalita Art Club, who hosts Liuba Rapoport’s “Graphics Game” exhibition’s surprising works there.

Her weightless, professionally-made, accurate drawings are enchantingly and unusually full of Kyivan atmosphere. Faces, houses, trees with bristling branches – everything is easily recognizable. Matissian figure collage fits well there, causing endorphin levels to jump. The house-shaped self-portrait is slightly nonsensical, but so cute-looking, calling on the spectator to enter the structured and comfortable chaos, which is entirely understandable to the artist herself and consists of emotions she experienced throughout her life.

An artist and heir of the family’s artistic tradition, a true citizen of Kyiv, Rapoport’s artworks preserve her beloved city’s atmosphere, now unfortunately vanishing, and adorn the collections of museums and private collections around the world. Her art fascinates as magic of the present, a “delicious,” convex word. How is she creating it?

“I draw when I am excited about something,” Rapoport says. “The excitement abates only after I had it drawn, the ‘it’ standing for that corner of the city, that tree, or that pair from my series “The Two,” who found each other in my drawings. Not all my intentions come to fruition, but sometimes, an unexpected discovery appears inadvertently on the paper. Such images come out better than pre-conceived drawings and bring a sense of celebration. The exhibition of my old and new works in my favorite gallery throws a new light on them, allowing to see the other side. Since old drawings live their own lives, I do not know whether there will be a dialogue of works of different years.”

Do not worry, dear Ms. Rapoport, your fears are groundless! The dialogue will surely happen, because your work has never been for-profit, but only full of tender beauty and sad farewell to a huge layer of culture that vanishes now.

The artist’s sweet graphic world will be on display until April 10.