Krystyna Melnyk

At the end of a shaded room stands a canvas depicting in monochrome a boy’s chest mutilated by disease. The silent seclusion of this temple-like space makes the image resemble an icon: the boy’s light skin glows and strikes the eye.

In her new piece, Melnyk emphasizes the duality of the empathetic feeling that one experiences in front of the pain of others. Here, she shifts her interest from the topic of violence to that of pain without specifically focusing on its cause. Even though this work is based on the artist’s research in a war photo archive, she does not depict a war injury. Instead, she uses illness as a metaphor for war, seeing it as a battle between life and death.

In her artistic practice, Melnyk consistently uses levkas, a primer traditionally employed in icon painting. By means of this medium, she creates a sacred experience and sensual tension between an artwork and a viewer. The painting has been created by gradual application of numerous semi-transparent layers of paint to get the final picture. It took the artist several months of meticulous work, during which she literally constantly had to face the image of pain emerging on the canvas.

Dedicated to Vlad Malashevskyi (27.02.2022) and Fedir Surzhenko (05.06.2015), whose hearts would not accept the coming violence.