Lviv Municipal Art Center presents the first solo exhibition “Desired Plane” by artist Lesya Khomenko in Lviv, which will open on June 23.
In the project “Desired Plane” Khomenko continues her program work with painting and deconstruction of figurative images. The artist uses stretchers, objects, canvas and biflex, as well as the work of artist Alevtina Kakhidze, whom Khomenko invited to be a guest of the exhibition.
The theme that unites the three works in the exhibition is the annexation of Crimea, told through personal memories, a constructed story and a desire to take possession of a plane — either territory or painting.
Being inside a geopolitical conflict, the artist seeks ways to deconstruct existing propaganda patterns by working with images at both the personal and social levels. The artist builds her version of events by putting together memories, manipulation of facts and indisputable factuality of artistic practice.
At the exhibition, Lesya Khomenko works with the image of waves, giving them the geopolitical symbolism of capturing territory. The images of the waves are borrowed — the exhibition features a drawing by artist Alevtina Kakhidze and a copy of Aivazovsky’s painting The Ninth Shaft.
The conflict is located in the center of the exposition. An overheard argument, conceived and constructed as a myth. The conversation overheard by the artist in 2019 on a Turkish beach between vacationers from Russia and Ukraine is a verbal battle for the territory, for the desired Crimean beach, which is currently difficult to access. A battle unfolding on another beach, in another place. Crimea at the exhibition represents captured plane. The heroes depicted in the biflex were denied flatness and made on a three-dimensional basis.
Lesya Khomenko was born in 1980 in Kyiv, where she lives and works now. She graduated from the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture in 2004. Since 2004, the co-founder and member of the group R.E.S. In 2005–2006 she took part in the residence of the Center for Contemporary Art at NaUKMA; in 2008 – at the LIA (Leipzig International Art program) residence in Leipzig, Germany. Since 2008 she has been a member of the KHUDRADA curatorial association. Her work has been exhibited in many solo and group exhibitions, including the main project of the Kyiv Biennale Arsenale in 2012, as well as exhibitions at the National Art Museum of Ukraine, New York’s White Box gallery, Vienna’s MUMOK and Zacheta gallery in Warsaw. Lesya Khomenko is a nominee for the PinchukArtCentre Prize in 2009, 2011 and 2013 and the Future generation art prize as part of the R.E.S. in 2012, founded by Viktor Pinchuk, as well as the nominee for the Kazemir Malevich Award in 2012 and 2016. Lesya Khomenko, co-founder of the RES group, works with painting and installation in her own practice.
The exhibition will be free to visit from June 24, 2021 from 10:00 to 19:00.