During past few years creative work of Olena Onufriv took a prominent place in artistic environment in Lviv. Despite the fact, that lately she did more work in Kyiv and for Kyiv, creative methods she adopted in Lviv art school can be traced in almost all of her projects. While comparing and analyzing Olena’s canvases made in recent years with main features of the art language of the region, one can notice a significant similarity in methods. And it is not because of her thorough skills of blown glass craft (Olena studied at the Lviv Academy of Arts on the department of decorative glass), which, famous Ukrainian art critic Alexandra Filonenko called as an artist's opportunity "to work with color in substantial and literal sense”, but in general concept of abstract decorative color. That particular concept once was called by one of the founders of the Lviv school of art as “Western-Ukrainian colorism”.
We can distinguish several main areas of interest in Olena Onufriv creative activity. One of them is a unique sense of landscape as pure abstract shaping. Olena’s landscape doesn’t contain a narrative, that is why it is so soft and nice.
While travelling through different places Olena thinks not so much about specific places, but about the beauty, that can be poetized on canvas. Poetic landscapes are formed through a unique understanding of the subtle brush strokes and textures of oil paint. Diffused and shimmering light, raised and refracted angles of lighting, slightly blurred and shifted viewer’s focus, all those aspects reflect instance and transience of her images. This technique conveys the brightest moments and spectacular scenery. Onufriv continues to explore the possibility of free and rapid oil sketch in landscape. That is why she is different from other Lviv landscape artists of younger generation, who are more closely directed to the classical order and neo-impressionistic landscape pattern. Thus, her canvases are endowed with extraordinary freshness and bravado. Paint is applied with great fluency, flexibility and spontaneity. Brave and energetic flourish, lines and strokes are scattered throughout the surface of the canvas in a lively and energetic rhythms. Blown, unfocused forms and ephemeral drawings are weaved on the surface of artist’s canvases. Her intricate, sharp strokes show only the most basic characteristic features and textures. But what is sometimes lost in the absence scrupulousity, can be at the same time displayed with liveliness and enthusiastic cheerful virtuosity.
In her style Olena develops contrasts of size, direction and speed of stroke, creates darker and lighter accents here and there, and reflects sunlight and shadow with contrasting strokes of shimmering color. Rhythmical surface is depicted on canvas with calm and static forms; it designs both mobile and integral composition. The apparent speed of process of painting becomes a landmark event to show the tempo of change of atmospheric phenomenon, season and time of day. Due to vitality of moment and absence of detailed processing, landscapes of Olena Onufriv are constructed with tranquility and yet have astonishing liveliness and freedom. Her landscapes - are peculiar duel between the real place and its representation, between physical and emotional restraint.
Technically, paintings of Olena Onufriv sometimes remind us overtaken traditions of decorative surfaces of prominent Western-Ukrainian artist Roman Selskyy from one hand and in the same time abstract analysis of landscape discovered by neo-impressionists Seurat and Pissaro. The light represented on her canvases is bright, original Mediterranean sunlight, that Olena so closely watched during her trips to Greece.
She always tries to understand and reflect the reality in its pure form. It seems that there is nothing easier than to depict what you can see, but time shows how difficult is this understanding and representation of reality. How can an artist, especially in modern times of weak artistic traditions and partial decay of painting, substantially reflect the severity of reality, intensity of color, structure, light and shade, our sense of beauty and poetry, its ugliness and horror? Indeed, its a difficult task to express the three-dimentional world on two-dimentional canvas.
The interpretation of reality in Olena Onufriv paintings is always deeper than normal, plain, photographic representation. She is always interested in internal structural and emotional core of the things, their forms and richness of their feelings. Maybe that is why she likes to paint flowers, which are obvious and even ideal in their natural beauty. They are also very clear to our inner feelings and psychological state. She often paints flowers, filling the entire surface of the canvases. Flowers as they bloom, fade and dries quickly, to some extent represent our own mortality, temporality and transience of our lives. That is why artists and poets have always used flowers as a subject of their work. Any painting on canvas is a kind of self portrait. Olena Onufriv is not just painting flowers, she uses form, color and texture to express emotions. She uses flowers as visual metaphors that can express many themes. Fragility of a flower, combined with its ephemeral beauty, intriguing delicacy and vivid colors heighten the drama of life and transience of their existence suggest urgency. As well as landscapes, Olena's floral compositions are not just designed to reflect nature, but rather represent the internal display, metaphorical journey into the depth of herself. They are very sentimental.
Last year Olena started a new series of works titled "Shadows on the Grass". After experimenting with advanced oil painting techniques and stylistic self-imagery language Olena Onufriv stopped on a series of oil paintings that focus on the effects of shadows falling on the grass. These paintings reflect the subtle and suggestive abstract forms of shaded areas that sometimes resemble ephemeral as display objects that are beyond the paintings, but their presence is felt.
The artist primarily interested in repeating layers of leaves of grass, makes diverse, colorful strokes that provide unique depth and texture saturation. In addition, abstract, ambiguous nature paintings, gives audience a possibility to identify the usual abstract plane with different ideas. "Shadows on the Grass" made in a peculiar way, where decorative, graphic characteristic of the Lviv school heritage intertwined with a unique sense of colorful saturation developed by artist.
Intensive artistic life of Olena Onufriv is directly connected with her social activities. She is well-known organizer and co-founder of various charitable events in Kyiv. Various auctions, exhibitions and charitable receptions inspire her to create more and to continue her artistic development. Because beauty will save the world. Such live and fresh approach is deeply appreciated by collectors and connoisseurs both in Ukraine and abroad. Her paintings and decorative objects can be found in various collections in Ukraine, USA, Canada, Poland, Finland, Greece, Spain. One of the biggest collection was recently purchased by "Regency Hayatt" hotel in Kyiv.
Roman Hankevych
Art Historian