Negative Thinking – series
2023, gouache, paper
Statement
I spent 8 months in the occupied Kherson, from the beginning of the occupation on March 1, 2022, until its end. I cannot say that the occupation fundamentally changed me as an artist. I was always sensitive to social processes, so I continued on the path I had chosen. As an artist, I work “intuitively”: I notice the “gaps” that abound in reality and reveal them in my works. Sometimes there is a temporal and spatial distance between the subject of research and the artist’s practice, but I directly and instantly read what is happening around me. Lately, it feels like I am living in the pages of a history textbook.
I draw domestic scenes from life during the war and occupation on tiles. I metaphorically embody new images that arose after the full-scale invasion or deconstruct old ones that previously had a steadfast connotation in the collective subconscious.
Artist’s Bio
Yuliia Danylevska is a renowned Kherson artist, with several personal exhibitions at the Kherson Museum of Contemporary Art since 2017. She graduated from the Kherson National University with an English and foreign literature degree, was later employed by the Kherson Regional Universal Scientific Library of Oles Honchar (the facility was devastated by russian shelling on November 12, 2023).
When the full-scale war broke out, Yuliia Danylevska remained in the russia-occupied Kherson. Wasting no time at all, she returned to artistic practice, with her images on white tiles depicting scenes of life under occupation – sometimes literal portrayals of existing reality, sometimes ironic word plays. The artist shared her works online, with many of her designs partaking in multiple expositions as mere paper reproductions.
Participated in contemporary art festivals: “TERRA FUTURA” (2013), “Mykolaiv ART week” (2019), “First Kherson Feminale” (2020), “DreamGogolFest” (2021); as well as at exhibitions in Ukraine and abroad: “Herart” (Kherson, Ukraine, 2020), “About Polina Raiko in the language of comic” (Kherson, Ukraine, 2021), “Animation of art resistance in the occupation” (Lviv and Kyiv, Ukraine, 2022), ” Piazza Ukraina” within the Venice Biennale (Venice, Italy, 2022), “ART WAR” as part of the “BIRUCHIY-TRANSCARPATHIA 022” project (Warsaw, Poland, 2022), “Insomnies en Ukraine” (Brussels, Belgium, 2023), ” RECORDS OF THE RESISTANCE” (Oberghausen, Germany, 2023), “How are you?” (Kyiv, Ukraine, 2023), “Our years, our words, our losses, our searches, our us” (Lviv, Ukraine, 2023), “FREEFILMERS MARIUPOL” (Innsbruck, Austria, 2023), “Secondary Archive. Women in War” (Lublin, Poland, 2024), “Unseen Power” (Kyiv, Ukraine, 2023), “The Kherson Museum of Contemporary Art welcomes you” (Lviv, Ukraine, 2024).