Gayane, Be on Time!

Stairs threaded down and gilded with damp autumn maple leaves, sacred doors of workshop – and in front of us we see the preferences of Tetyan Yablonska: pictures of artists chosen by her.  Collection of the chosen pictures is a grandiose museum. The Gallery of Yablonska is unique because the artist, having skills of collecting, exhibited the works of colleagues-painters – both well-heeled contemporaries and her students quite young ones, who then were yet beginners. For example, the works of Tyberiy Silvashi or Oleg Tistol. Presently they are the giants of the art market. And when at the first Andriyivskyi Uzviz Oleg Tistiola exhibited his own works and when Tetyana Yablonska was the first to buy one of his work, it was an unbelievable success for the artist.

– She liked and bought it, – the daughter of Yablonska Gayane Atayan recollects. – And here is the work of Tyberiy, one of his first abstractions. Here is everything what and how my mother exhibited. Here is Yevgen Volobuyev, Andriy Kotska, Nataliya Vergun, Yuriy Lutskevych, Vira Kuleba-Barynova…It’s really somewhat surprising. It is natural when you are in the workshop of some artist to see, what everyone expects, his works, and here you can see his preferences. This is, however, more frank. Mightiness of her Majesty Yablonska is that she is so ambiguous and incomprehensible, in that she has such a sharp tongue and she is popularly accepted and really genius, she could be happy both for herself and for colleagues. She was not annoyed by watching their works. And she enjoyed doing it not somewhere at an exhibition, but in her own workshop.

They are altogether here and now. Gayane doesn’t change anything.

Spartan atmosphere, chapped, scuffed, and somewhere slipped down walls, batten appearing on the ceiling, the roof is ruining and flowing... The mode of humidity and temperature is regulated by the external environment and valued-public crisis. There are no luxurious frames relevant to invaluable canvas. Instead there is a miracle-machine-tool which Gayane has mastered and now arranges her works on her own. “Special” illumination is an old gear where the lamp can be moved with a winch with a ceramic counterbalance-bump. It must have been here since famous teacher of Tetyana Yablonska Professor Fedir Krychevskyi worked in this workshop.

Everywhere the works of Tetyana Yablonska are returned to the walls, the works of her sisters Olga Otroshchenko are in frames as they were at the exhibitions. There must be the works of another older sister Olena...

I have a strong desire to touch the pictures and turn them to the light. But days are needed for it. And Gayane hurries. She bears great canvas in her mind. She shows the well written out “etudes” which strike with the willingness to get up before a spectator. But she says these are the preparations for great pictures. That is her cherished desire. Here we see pictures where deep like in silver morning landscape, watery waste sounds; some marigolds flare and others, as if kissed by ice, radiate life, provide with their heat; the hay breathes under the luxury of crowns; graceful white roses want in the good-looking dwelling.

Technique of Gayane gives the impression of volume, depth and living energy of canvas.

– You are alike your mother, – I don’t even know whether I ask or assert.

– We are alike and different at the same time. My mother wrote widely and boldly. My technique is more reserved.

And she showed the examples:  wide and strong dash of mother’s brush “Autumn Began” and here is the material saturation of the letter of her sister Olga – “Summer Meadow” and ‘Walk”. They burned into memory and do not release.

Viktoriya SVITLANOVA