“Agrarian” philosophy

Pumpkins, apples, pears, and grapes – marketplace stalls are almost bursting with the fruits of soil and human labor, which farmers (or dealers) sell. The fall is a time for harvesting. Artist Oleh Hryshchenko also presented his “Fruits” recently at Ya Gallery. Following “Grain Memory” and “Florescence,” this project concludes an “agrarian-tinged” cycle, as the author himself calls it.

The “Fruits” project is very personal reflections on the circulation of life, which prompts the spectator to stir up his or her own memories. “The project has grown very much, for the very metaphor of a fruit is broad – from ripening to the phase when fruits fall, decay, and disintegrate into seeds. The circle is thus closed, and new forms of life emerge,” Hryshchenko says.

Art books, video, graphics – the exhibit is quite variegated. The exposition embeds the works of Hryshchenko’s relatives: a landscape by his grandfather Hnat Tarasiuk and drawings by his father’s cousin Liubov Parkhomenko. The latter is the heroine of the art book “Liubka and her Grapes.” “A land surveyor once lodged at Liubka’s house. When he had gone, he left some maps of the locality. Liubka drew grapes on them – she imprinted leaves by means of real grapes, marked berries with her finger, and hung this instead of wallpaper on her porch,” the book says.

Hryshchenko conceived his trilogy as many as three years ago. “I’ve known Oleh for a long time. He has become less verbose in the time we’ve worked together,” Ya Gallery founder and curator Pavlo Gudimov says. “This artist knows how to think and feel.”

Oleh Hryshchenko’s “Fruits” are being displayed at the Ya Gallery art center until November 23.