Oksana Tymkiv

Oksana Tymkiv – artist, icon-painter, restorer, teacher. She belongs to the number of artists who have devoted themselves to the in-depth study of sacred art. The artist's multi-style approach to the creation of the cultic easel painting is conditioned by the desire to penetrate into the essence of sacred art: leaving the spiritual basis of icon painting in Ukraine to modern religious painting, through a gradual departure from the established canon to innovations using various artistic techniques and means of creative reflection. Religious works "Hodegetria", "The Child's Game", "The Image of the Holy Muse", "Saint Nicholas", the triptych "Three Saints", polyptych of "Icon-case" became a synthesis of modern sacred art and Byzantine-Russian icon-painting traditions. In the icons "Hodegetria", "The Baby's Game", the artist creates a lyrical image of the Mother of God, imitating the canons of the church art and showing the author's vision. The play "The Child's Game" corresponds to the iconographic type "Eleusa" ("Tenderness"), which has origins in the Byzantine tradition of church art. Jesus pressed his cheek to the Virgin Mary. The interpretation of the folds of the maforium of the Mother of God and the clothes of the baby is three-dimensional and styled. In the icon "Saint Nicholas" the artist successfully uses the "dichromatic effect" - the contrast of warm and cold colors under the influence of Greco-Byzantine sacral art. The works "Guardian Angel", "Archistrategus Michael" are made in the Baroque style, captured with festive colors and intense luminescence. There is rococo style sensed in the icon "Saint Catherine", which is evidenced by the posture and the elements of clothing of the Great Martyr. The wedding couple "The Virgin with the Child" and "Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker" was created by the master in a realistic-academic manner and looks solemn and majestic. The light colors of the garments of the saints contrast with the heavenly background, transmitting the divine purity, plunging those who admire the artwork into the meditative state. The works of sacred painting in the artist's creative interpretation acquire a new meaning and modern sound, radiate powerful spiritual energy and possess an incredible inner power, helping to approach the transcendent and to think about the meaning of life. The artist is in constant search of a tangential manner and new forms of embodiment of the ideas of the religious genre.
Kateryna Popovych, art critic