Between the brush and the war: the artist's intimate space was demonstrated in the Bleshchunov Museum in Odesa

An exhibition of paintings by Svitlana Kryzhevska "The World of the Artist. Workshop".

This was reported by an Intent correspondent.

This is a project within the framework of the artist's 80th anniversary year - a chamber, but conceptually built exposition about the artist's inner space: the memory of traveling around Ukraine, things as carriers of time, new works with markers of military reality.

Svitlana Kryzhevska is a member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine, an artist with many years of experience in creative and pedagogical work, and the wife of graphic artist Hennadii Harmyder, who was awarded a star on the Alley of Stars in 2025 in Odesa.

"I joined the union and got a workshop. It was before my husband got it. For 15 years we worked together in those walls. Children were born there, grandchildren grew up there. Hennadii Harmider got his own studio only 15 years later," the artist said.

Kryzhevska taught at the Faculty of Art and Graphic Arts of the K.D. Ushynskyi Pedagogical University for over twenty years. She received her artistic education at the Odesa Art School named after M.B. Grekov and the Kyiv Art Institute (now the National Academy of Arts and Sciences of Ukraine).

In 2026, the artist celebrates her 80th birthday. A series of exhibition projects representing different aspects of her work are planned for this date in Odesa. The first one was the exhibition "Our Beautiful World" at the Roerich House Museum in Odesa, which featured still lives and spring landscapes.

The exhibition "The Artist's World. Workshop" offers a different - chamber and inner - view of the artist's work. It is an attempt to look into her creative laboratory, a space that usually remains closed to outsiders.

"Inspired by folk culture, Svitlana Kryzhevska traveled almost all over Ukraine, bringing back not only sketches and drawings, but also objects that eventually became part of her artistic environment: cheese horses from the Carpathians, a Kosiv candlestick, a spinning wheel from the Donetsk region, and towels. In painting, these things appear as carriers of memory, experience, and personal history," the museum notes.

Today's time has its own material signs: a military backpack and boots, a calendar with the frozen date of February 24, a rooster from Borodyanka. They enter the artist's artistic space as signs of experience that cannot be avoided. Visitors noted that there were many fresh works that not only tell about peaceful life, but also about what affects life in times of war.

The exhibition features a reproduction of a painting that was kept in the Mariupol Art Museum. Its further fate is currently unknown. Other works depicting artists at work have a happier history of preservation: a portrait of the artist's father, artist Hryhorii Kryzhevskyi, and graphics by O. Danchenko are in museum collections; a portrait of the painter and poet V. Kabachenko is in a private collection.

The exposition is complemented by Svitlana Kryzhevska's personal belongings: a sketchbook - a constant companion in her travels, brushes, ceramics, photographs from her personal archive. Together, they form a holistic image of the artist in space, time, and the studio. It should be noted that the exhibition was attended by many of the artist's students, as well as the subjects of her portraits.

"In general, there are no more severe critics than students. You chase them around, and here you show your work," Kryzhevska admits.

In turn, the teenagers were sad to hear that the artist had retired from teaching. She admitted that she still treats her paintings like children who need to be released into the world. "When you submit a work to an exhibition, your knees tremble, your heart beats, and what will the students say?"
It should be noted that the museum will organize master classes by the artist.

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