Olesia Avramenko: ‘Ukrainian Art Preserves What the World Is Gradually Losing’

Olesia Avramenko has spent more than four decades researching Ukrainian art. Every project she undertakes – whether an article, a book, a solo exhibition, or a group plein-air painting session in Crimea or Kaniv – it always begins with a fascination of the person whose work she sets out to explore with such care and passion.

Her new monographs on Ukrainian artists are always major events in the art world.

This year, Avramenko received the Taras Shevchenko National Prize of Ukraine. In an interview with Kyiv Post, the acclaimed Ukrainian art historian recalls her father’s final advice, reflects on the artists who have become the subjects of her monographs, and discusses the Ukrainian art school, the war, and how Ukrainian art is perceived internationally. She also speaks about beauty – something she says she has come to feel with particular intensity during Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Kyiv Post: You were born into a family of a journalist and writer, and a philologist and educator. What first drew you to art history?

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Olesia Avramenko: It is an almost mystical story. My father, Oleksandr Avramenko, was a journalist and writer. I was 14 when, one February evening, we were alone together. He called me over, asked me to sit beside him, and wanted to know what profession I was planning to choose.

“A journalist, like you,” I replied confidently, expecting his support.

Instead, my father looked surprised. “Why?”

“I want to see the world and travel,” I answered naively.

But he objected anxiously. He said journalism was not a suitable profession for a girl, that I might end up as a reporter for a district newspaper in the USSR, writing about harvests, milk yields, and socialist competitions between collective farm brigades. It was hard, thankless work, he said.

“Then what should I become?” I asked, confused.

“An art historian! You will work in a museum, in a quiet environment, and write about paintings and artists.”

I disagreed and went to bed. The next morning, my father’s heart stopped. And at the very moment he was dying, my alarm clock rang.

For many years afterward, I woke up at precisely that time. I came to understand that my father had left me a final wish. I decided I would become an art historian and never change my surname. And that is exactly what I did.

I fall in love with the talent of the people I write about, and that helps me create, too. I rarely accept commissions. I do so only when a subject, a personality, or a body of work genuinely captures my interest.

This is both my strength and my vulnerability. It is a strength because my writing is passionate and leans toward literature. Perhaps this is where I most closely follow in my father’s footsteps.

Your books appeal to a wide readership and explore artists as different as Kateryna Bilokur, Ivan Prykhodko, Oleh Tistol, Anatoly Kryvolap, and Hanna Kryvolap. What connects them?

I would not try to group them together. They are like trees standing in a vast field: each is magnificent in its own right and knows how to withstand a storm. This is neither a grove nor a forest. Still, perhaps they are united by the same soil in which they grow. (Smiles.)

One way or another, Ukrainian artists share powerful cultural roots. They are sensitive, yet they have great confidence in themselves and their choices, and the strength to defend them. They are educated, have broad horizons, and possess a powerful sense of national identity. They also often have a distinctive character and a Baroque temperament shaped by Ukraine’s dramatic history.

The war has radically changed international attention to Ukrainian culture. Is there a risk that the world will come to see Ukrainian art primarily through the lens of war?

We must emerge from this terrible ordeal imposed on us with dignity, defeat the invasion, and save Ukraine. For now, the lens of war is unavoidable when the world looks at our country. The international community must not close its eyes to the scale and horror of the tragedy unfolding on our soil. When your neighbor’s house is on fire, the flames can spread to other rooftops.

The artists who have left Ukraine but are doing more than simply trying to survive. Through their work, they are raising a powerful outcry about the bloody war in their homeland. They also use the proceeds from their art to support Ukraine’s Armed Forces.

I am really proud of those who have stayed in Ukraine and continue working with determination. It is important for the international community to look inside Ukraine, into artists’ studios and exhibitions, and see what they are creating.

Consider Oleksandr Dubovyk, who is 95, or the 80-year-old Anatoly Kryvolap and Anatoly Kushch, alongside their colleagues Viktor Sydorenko, Oleh Tistol, Mykola Matsenko, Matviy Vaisberg, Hanna Kryvolap, and Nikita Titov. There are also artists working in Uzhhorod, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kryvyi Rih, Lviv, and elsewhere.

It is here, in Ukraine, that extraordinary ideas with significance for the entire world are emerging, even at this deeply traumatic moment. Artists of immense power and talent continue to create.

What does the world still fail to understand about Ukrainian art?

Its humanity. Ukrainian art is deeply heartfelt, profound, and penetrating. It stirs emotions without manipulation, doing so with nobility.

To a considerable extent, it grows out of an academic tradition. Ukrainian artists know how to draw, understand composition, and know how to present their work. With this foundation, they can move forward and explore themselves through other materials and forms.

It is like singing, music, or ballet: you have to know the fundamentals. At a certain point, the international art world decided that a gesture alone was enough – without skill, articulation, or command of the language.

But can you write poetry without knowing the language?

I believe craftsmanship and taste will always remain valuable, alongside profound ideas and a contemporary artistic language.

What sustains you during the war? What are your main sources of strength today?

I have become acutely sensitive to the beauty around me and to the flow of life itself – so much so that it can be painful. There is death all around, and yet you are still alive…

Yet sometimes you can look at a work of art, and it brings you back to life.

My work sustains me. When I am writing a book, I live inside it. I fall asleep thinking about how to structure a chapter and what to change when a new idea emerges.

At the same time, I am not simply working on a book. I work at the Modern Art Research Institute, where my texts are reviewed by doctors of science and approved by the academic council. It is serious scholarly work.

You have inspired artists, and many have painted your portrait. How many portraits do you have, and is there one that holds a special place in your collection?

I have never counted them. There are probably about ten. (Smiles.)

Over time, Viktor Zaretsky’s portrait “A Cup of Coffee” has become the most important to me.

And this year, another portrait appeared in my life – one I had not even known existed. Some time ago, the painter Viktor Hryhorov, an artist known for his monumental painting, invited me to his studio to sit for a portrait. I never went.

This year, I published a book about him. In response, an acquaintance who is a collector gave me a large drawing and said, “This is your portrait.”

Everything came together – the timing, the feeling, and the way I looked at that time. For me, it was a special sign, arriving years later.

All these portraits bear witness to relationships: those that happened and those that never came to be. Today, they offer me another way to leaf through the pages of my own life and often to discover the artist anew.