An exhibition of works from OLEKSIY ZHUKOV, MARIA SHULHA, & OLEH LYFORENKO.
«A long weekend, a winter escape, a birthday celebration.
You don’t want to double the price of your flight so you stuff the essentials in a small backpack. it’s going to be warm; you don’t need much.
And then a war breaks out.
This was the beginning of the story for these three Ukrainian artists travelling to Valencia, Spain, in February 2022. »
From December 2nd 2022, to January 18th 2023 Galeria Reb/el Cabanyal presented exhibition Packing Light.
Three Ukrainian artists explore ideas of home, nationality, and identity in this deeply personal exhibition.
Exploring the loss of their homeland, reflecting on the stories of horror and destruction from the places they played as children - where their families and friends remain. And their relationship with their new surroundings. How even great beauty can become distorted when it is enforced, how generosity can be suffocating when it is indispensable, and how their passion for art, for creating, documenting, and for expression, has helped them to survive, evolve and develop, artistically and personally.
From the artists:
We are Oleksiy, Oleh, Maria and Diana (who unfortunately does not participate in the exhibition with us), artists from Ukraine who turned out to be forced refugees from the war who have had to merge into a new, unfamiliar environment for us.
We came to Spain to celebrate Maria's birthday on February 24 with one backpack for each. Despite the alarming news stories, we did not believe that the war would begin. We planned to fly home early on the morning of February 26th but the war made adjustments to our plans and we were forced to stay here. I think we were very lucky because our parents stayed in this hell. Maria is from Mariupol and her parents are still there. But fortunately, despite the situation, all our parents are fine. Mariupol was almost wiped off the face of the earth. Kharkiv is bombarded with rockets almost every day. And many other cities are subjected to daily terror. Gradually we began to get used to our situation and start doing our main business - we bought materials, started doing work. Slowly we began to accumulate materials and thanks to our acquaintance with the owner of the Reb/el gallery, Terry, and his help, we decided to hold this exhibition.
The main objectives of the exhibition are to tell our story- about how our situation developed and we had to get used to a new and unfamiliar environment for us, and acquaint the audience with Ukrainian art, our symbols, and our culture.
Each of us has a certain style that is not similar to each other, and thanks to this, there is a huge contrast between our artworks. For us this situation turned out to be something new, unusual for us, with which we almost coped, and to which we adapted.
Galery "Reb/el" ( Reb/el Cabañal )
C/ d'Ernest Anastasio 37,
46011, Valencia
