One Root — Many Routes Exhibit

By Nestor Gula

Upon declaring the exhibit One Root — Many Routes open, curator Olexander Wlasenko mentioned a sense of dejà vue. He remembered coming to Toronto’s Ukrainian Canadian Art Foundation (KUMF) on “Sundays, just like this one, with my mother who is here as well.” He said that KUMF had
a very strong and influential impact on his upbringing and as curator of this exhibit he hopes to pass this inspirational torch on to following generations.

The exhibit show, which opened on May 4, and ran until May 22^nd, featured eight artists of Ukrainian heritage. “To be sure, all eight artists featured here trace their origins to Ukraine,” he notes in his forward. “Some were born there, while others identify with earlier waves of immigration to Canada prior to Ukraine’s independence. Each individual in this group relates to his or her ancestral roots in very different ways.”

The range of artists showing a selection of their work at this exhibit was impressive.

Toronto-based Vera Jacyk, exhibited a series of drawings titled “Notes to (a) self.” She finds that her upbringing in Ukrainian language and culture influences her creative outlet.

Born in post-war Germany, Olena Kassian arrived in Canada with her parents as a seven year old. A commercial artist for most of her life, she has only recently been exhibiting her artwork that she deems as very personal.

Montreal based Jean-Michel Komarnicki was born in France to Ukrainian parents who actually came to France before the Second World War. He exhibited five works from his series, “Over the Bridge, Our Field.” This encompassed photographs taken of simple bridges both in his father's and mother's villages in Ukraine, intertwined with mementos of Ukrainian cultural life found in his father's home after the artist’s parents passed away.

Born in Kyiv, Ukraine, Natalia Laluque was an accomplished artist there before relocating to Toronto. Her work centres on the role of women in Ukrainian life, with a bit of self-deprecating humour thrown in. She comments on the ironies of life when she used to listen to Brezhnev greeting the citizens of Ukraine and now she listens to Queen Elizabeth send her greetings to the citizens of Canada.

Charles Sharun is another artist in this series that has returned to drawing and painting in the last twenty years. Although he has worked in an artistic field for most of his life, he has only recently been exhibiting his personal works. His work is touched by a bit of surrealism. At first glance, the works seem to be an unidentifiable mass of movement. After further perusal, more concrete shapes and images seemingly appear to move, to dance, on the canvas.

Bohdan Sirant was born in Toronto and was inspired to paint by his father. Even so, he earned an engineering degree and only recently started to seriously delve into his artistic side. His works displayed at this exhibit were heavily symbolic of the role and effects of Soviet doctrine on Ukraine. 

Born near Manchester, England, Orest Tataryn has had many careers in Canada and has been pursuing his artistic goals for the past two decades. His medium is light emitting from crafted neon tubes. Combined with line drawings and transparent acrylic painting, the effect is mesmerizing.

Hailing from Lviv, Ukraine, Anna Yushchuk sees her work “as a sensitive space where the movement of subtle colour forms is triggered by a sensitive observer.” Her subtle paintings at one moment seemingly are seemingly without form and then morph into a solid context at another moment.