Female Corporeality and Religion 2023
Online Art Exhibition
“The Great Mother”, Triptych
Volodymyr Slepchenko
The work performed in author's original technique “Artline”
Canvas, acrylic
151 x 100 cm left part,
135 x 200 cm central part
151 x 100 cm right part
2011
Not For Sale
Description
The painting consists of three parts: in the left part the artist’s gaze reaches deep into the ages – 5-6 thousand years ago, when the Trypillia civilization reigned in the territories of Ukraine long before the Mycenaean kingdom and the Egyptian pyramids. This is a clay figurine of a female goddess, who carries a child in her womb.
The central part of the triptych has a more complex design. It represents the image of the Mother of God – Oranta with the Son of God in a solar disk. The Oranta icon, being the main image in the Hagia Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, is the symbol of medieval Ukrainian Christianity. But in its traditional rendering this image is full of magnificence and triumph. Here, however, it is distorted by unexpected signs of suffering and humiliation (chains, piercing of the hand, the drop of blood, erosion of the image). On the two sides of the central figures in golden rectangles are silhouettes of Ukraine’s two most emblematic church buildings: the Kyiv Lavra bell tower (on the right) and the St. Volodymyr Cathedral in Kyiv (on the left). The former until very recently (2023) belonged to the Russian Orthodox Church, and the latter was the main church of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The central image bears the signs of suffering from the foreign domination of the “Russian World” over the Ukrainian Church and its holy sites, the domination which provided the ideological basis for the bloody war and the death of many innocent people. Still, the image persists in resistance to destruction and fills us with the hope for future victory. We believe that the shackles will fall and the truth will prevail.
In the right part of the triptych, a young pregnant woman is depicted as a significant and beautiful part of the world created by God. The coming of a new person in the world is a miracle, which the author sees as a holy-day, and a woman who gives brings life – as a holy person.
Volodymyr Slepchenko
In his work, academician Volodymyr Slepchenko constantly returns to the theme of the female body in various cultural and sociological contexts.
Volodymyr Slepchenko (b. 1947) is a Ukrainian painter, graphic and monumental artist, and master of psychological portraiture. He works in the artistic orientation of romantic symbolism, inventing his own technique and unique artline style. People's Artist of Ukraine, Honored Artist of Ukraine, academician. Head of the Department of Culture and Arts and Academician of the World Academy of Arts (MONDIAL ART ACADEMIA), France.
He has participated in numerous regional, national, foreign and international exhibitions. He is the winner of many national and international awards, including the Botticelli Prize in 2019. Since 1970, he has held more than 80 personal exhibitions in Ukraine, Poland, France, Germany, Canada, Israel, Slovakia, Italy, Greece, Spain, Japan and other countries. He was a participant in the group exhibition of Ukrainian artists "Autumn Salon-90" in Paris (France) in 1990.
Volodymyr Slepchenko's paintings and graphic works are held in museums, galleries and private collections in Ukraine and in many countries of the world. Since 2005, the portrait of the Grand Master of the Order of Malta Andrew Bertie has been on permanent display at the Gallery of Portraits of Grand Masters in Malta. Since 2018, the painting "The Great Baptism" has found a place of honor in the permanent exhibition on the second floor of the main shrine of Ukraine - St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv.
For more than 50 years, the artist has been fruitfully working in various types and genres of fine arts, but among the main works of the artist are paintings on historical themes from the Trypillia era to the present.
