LESYA KHOMENKO / THE EYEWITNESS
30.04 - 13.05.2009

LESYA HOMENKO PRESENTS ANOTHER TYPE OF THE WORLD WAR II, BASING ON THE MEMORIES OF HER GRANDFATHER

Kyiv, the 30th of April 2009, 19.00 - Collection Gallery presents a new art project of one of the participants of the group "R.E.P" Lesya Homenko "Witness".

Lesya Homenko, the artist: "Witness" is the project of my grandfather, Stepan Repin, who fought in the World War II in the reconnoitering and made maps. I create my "battle-scene" paintings, basing on his reminiscences. And my grandfather is the central figure of these paintings.

Taking the key moments out of the grandfather's memoirs, where he was close to death, I create the monumental canvases, that have a very heroic meaning to me but at the same time show the variability of the showed things.

I show the other type of a hero. I use the elements of social reality to show my relation towards history. With the flow of time human memory leaves only main things on the surface, erasing the details. The history often uses the manipulative mechanisms, basing on the interesting details. Taking everything unnecessary out of the frame, I make my manipulation instruments "transparent".

I present very private, subjective look on history, underlining that it can be only subjective.

I want to raise a question: does our generation have the right on the history it has no direct relation to? Aren't the stereotyped conceptions, that make the integration into the international context and the search for new identity harder, supposed to be reconsidered?

Lesya Homenko made herself known as an independent artist in 2004. Being one of the main participants of the group "R.E.P.", 2004-2005 she distinguished herself with a special consecutiveness. The first leitmotiv is the monumentality of a human being, the other - works with interactive media, that was successfully demonstrated on the first exhibition of "R.E.P." in Contemporary Arts Center. During that time her personal exhibitions took place in "Art Arsenal" ("Walruses", 2007), Moscow "Regina" (2006) etc. Her projects had success in Europe, for example "The Art World" in the gallery Feinkost in Berlin (Germany), "The Letter" on the biennale "Art-Novich" in England and "The Poem About the Internal See" in the project of "R.E.P." and Mark Tichner "We are Ukrainians. What else?" on the biennale in Venice in 2007.

The official opening of the exhibition will take place on the 30th of April, on Thursday, at 19.00 in Collection Gallery at the address: vyl. Pankivska, 8. The exhibition will last till the 13th of May. During the opening the author will present "a tour" of her works for audience and mass-media.