Ukrainian Symbolic Forms
Before developing my own symbolic language, I explored Ukrainian ancestral traditions through clay, straw, and ornament. These works examine how inherited symbols take physical form, preserving cultural memory through material, geometry, and traditional craftsmanship.
Title: Pysanky Panel
Direction: Before the Worlds / Ancestral Languages / Ukrainian Symbolic Forms
Medium: Five natural hen eggshells, beeswax, traditional dyes, cardboard panel, black cardstock, textile fringe, acrylic markers.
Technique: Hand-emptied and dried eggshells, traditional Ukrainian wax-resist decoration using a kistka (pysachok), successive dye baths, and mixed-media panel assembly.
Dimensions: 20 × 34 cm | 7.9 × 13.4 in
Format: Vertical
Framing: Unframed
About Artwork:
Pysanky Panel explores the egg as a small symbolic universe, carrying inherited ideas of birth, growth, protection, continuity, and cosmic order.
Five traditional Ukrainian pysanky form a single composition, each carrying a distinct ornamental language. Geometric divisions, botanical motifs, solar associations, and repeated patterns suggest different ways of understanding the relationship between nature and human life.
The eggs are arranged across a white field interrupted by black geometric shapes and additional hand-drawn symbols. Red textile fringes evoke the traditional Ukrainian rushnyk, extending the symbolism beyond the eggs into the structure of the panel itself.
Created during my exploration of ancestral visual languages, the work reflects an early question that would later become central to my artistic practice: how can a simple form hold meanings much larger than itself?
Artwork’s Slogan: “A Universe in the Palm of a Hand.”
Title: Pavuk — Straw Mobile
Direction: Before the Worlds / Ancestral Languages / Ukrainian Symbolic Forms
Medium: Wheat straw, thin wire.
Technique: Hand-assembled geometric straw construction using interconnected three-dimensional forms.
Dimensions: Approx. 40 × 30 cm | 15.7 × 11.8 in
Format: Hanging object / Mobile
About Artwork:
Pavuk is a traditional Ukrainian suspended geometric ornament, historically associated with the home and the winter festive season.
Constructed from wheat straw, its interconnected pyramidal and diamond-shaped structures create a delicate balance between order and movement. The geometry remains visible through its open framework, allowing light and surrounding space to become part of the object.
For me, the significance of this form lies in its transformation of a simple natural material into a complex spatial structure. Repetition creates rhythm, while individual elements become part of a larger interconnected whole.
The work reflects my early interest in how inherited symbols can move beyond a flat surface and become physical structures.
Artwork’s Slogan: “When Geometry Takes Shape in Space.”
Title: Trypillian Female Figurine
Direction: Before the Worlds / Ancestral Languages / Ukrainian Symbolic Forms
Medium: Terracotta clay, white acrylic paint.
Technique: Hand-modelled terracotta figurine with hand-painted geometric ornament, based on a historical reconstruction.
Dimensions: Approx. 20 × 7 cm | 7.9 × 2.8 in
Format: Three-dimensional object
About Artwork:
Trypillian Female Figurine explores an ancient visual language through the reconstruction of a human form.
Modelled in terracotta and decorated with white geometric ornament, the figure draws on the sculptural traditions of the Trypillia culture. Its elongated proportions, simplified anatomy, and rhythmic markings connect the human body with abstract symbolic structures.
In Ukrainian cultural tradition, the image of Berehynia evokes a female guardian associated with protection, care, and the preservation of life. Although this interpretation cannot be directly attributed to the ancient Trypillia culture, it offers a contemporary perspective on the symbolic significance of the female form.
By recreating an existing historical reconstruction, I explored how material, proportion, and ornament can preserve visual memory across generations.
Artwork’s Slogan: “When the Body Becomes a Symbol.”