Female Corporeality and Religion 2023

About the Exhibition

The exhibition “Female Corporeality and Religion in Contemporary Ukrainian Art” accompanies the international conference on “Female Corporeality and Religion”. Both initiatives are sponsored by the Centre for Women’s Studies in Theology of the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium), and Kosmoi - Leuven Centre for the Study of Religion and Worldview. At the invitation of the conference organizers, the Iconography School of the Ukrainian Catholic University (Lviv, Ukraine) has brought together more than 50 works by 20 contemporary Ukrainian artists from Kyiv, Lviv, and Kharkiv and presented them in the form of a virtual exhibition.

The unifying theme across all these artworks is the captivating beauty and profound symbolism of the female body, conveyed through imagery inspired by various religious traditions that have shaped Ukrainian culture throughout history, spanning from the Neolithic period to the present day. The exhibition explores themes such as prehistoric (Trypillian) and medieval Slavic religion, ancient cults of the Greek colonies in the Northern Black Sea region, as well as Judaism and Christianity. The showcased works employ diverse techniques, styles, and formats, including chamber, interior, monumental, and panel paintings.

How to View the Artworks

Our virtual exhibition can be viewed as a Gallery of Artworks and in the Virtual Tour mode.

In Virtual Tour mode, you can navigate the exhibition in two ways:

1. As an automatic “Guided tour” – click the “Start Guided Tour” button.

Please note: the guided tour is accompanied by music and not an audio description. Details of the artwork are attached to each piece.

2. Manually – click the “Enter Exhibition” button ( use the ‘right’, ‘left’, ‘up’, and ‘down’ arrows in the lower right corner to move through the halls of the exhibition OR by clicking on artworks with your mouse).

Please note: you can read a more detailed description of each artwork by clicking on its image. The majority of the descriptions have been prepared by the artists; in cases where no text was made available by the artist, the curator, Solomiya Tymo (indicated by the initials ST), has provided brief descriptions.

Our Charity Aims

This exhibition is intended as a charitable event aimed at supporting two vital causes: the demining efforts in Ukraine, which has become the most heavily mined country in the world, and providing assistance to artists in a nation grappling with the challenges posed by war.

The execution of this charity project will be done by "Nova Ukraine" - a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing humanitarian aid to Ukraine. "Nova Ukraine" is working since 2014 and already delivered $71M worth of aid to Ukraine.

We kindly encourage you to consider purchasing artwork or making a donation to support our mission. Unless otherwise indicated, for each of the sold works of art, half of the proceeds will go to the charity, and the other half, to the artist.

Learn more about our charity initiative here.

Our Team

Idea and Oversight of the Exhibition - Dominika Kurek-Chomycz, Associate Professor of New Testament Studies at Liverpool Hope University, UK.

Exhibition Curator - Solomiya Tymo,
Director of the Radruzh Iconography School at the Ukrainian Catholic University (exhibition concept, design and texts), (Lviv, Ukraine)

Exhibition Art Manager - Alina Remarchuk,
student in the Master's program in Art Management at the Lviv National Academy of Arts, (Vinnytsia, Ukraine)

Technical Team: Yaroslav Semerak, Stephan Skoropadsky, Mykhailo Tymo, Volodymyr Andriushko (photography, website & virtual space creation, tech support), (Lviv, Ukraine)

We express our sincere gratitude to Emma Swai (recently completed Ph.D. in Biblical Studies at Liverpool Hope University, UK) and Sarah Whitear (Ph.D. candidate in Biblical Studies at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, and the coordinator of the Female Corporeality and Religion conference) for their support and advice.

We also wish to acknowledge the financial support provided by the Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO).