THE PAINTING CYCLE THE CREATOR’S GAZE BY OLENA KHOMENKO (2021–2022): PROJECTIONS OF THE PAST AND THE PRESENT

Анотація

Olena Khomenko is a Lviv-based artist and educator known for her art projects situated at the intersection of painting and traditional tapestry. Her artistic practice integrates the decorative art traditions of the past with the forms and media of contemporary visual expression. This critical review focuses on one of the artist’s most recent cycles, Creator’s Point, initiated in 2021 as an intuitive prefiguration of the dramatic events that unfolded in Ukraine in February 2022.

The artworks created between 2022 and 2024 are based on iconographic material derived from folk religious imagery, the material qualities of fabric as a traditional medium, and the expanded possibilities offered by contemporary technologies for copying and reproducing visual images. In this way, Olena Khomenko’s project articulates a comprehensive dialogue between tradition and innovation in contemporary Ukrainian art.

The cycle is analyzed through an interdisciplinary methodological framework employing the concepts of intermediality and intertextuality. This approach allows for the identification of relationships between elements transposed from different visual art techniques, as well as for tracing references among various “texts” of visual culture from both the past and the present.