Beijing hosts art event celebrating 116th birthday of Ukrainian artist Maria Prymachenko

In Beijing, to mark the 116th anniversary of renowned artist Maria Prymachenko's birth, Ukrainians organized an art event highlighting her life and work. Additionally, they joined their Chinese friends in attempting to recreate one of her famous pieces by hand.

Ukrinform reports this.

The event was held at the initiative of Ukrainian community activist Iryna Zhurenko and with the assistance of the Embassy of Ukraine in China.

The event's guests were presented with an exhibition dedicated to the life and work of the outstanding Ukrainian artist, featuring reproductions of her most famous works.

The highlight of the event was an online master class by Anna Shoshova, an instructor at Kyiv's "Likhtaryk" art studio. The class focused on creating a drawing in Maria Prymachenko's naive art style.

During the master class, Anna Shoshova spoke about the artist's childhood, her first steps in painting, and the formation of her own unique style, which is distinguished by fantastic images, bright colors, and deep symbolism.

She said that exhibitions of Maria Prymachenko's works were held not only in European cities but also in the 1980s in Beijing, the capital of China.

Participants were invited to personally recreate one of the artist's famous drawings, "The Ukrainian Bull," which depicts a fantastic beast created by Prymachenko's imagination and brush.

The organizers also held an interactive quiz, during which those present tested their knowledge about the artist and her creative work and received sets of postcards depicting the artist's works.

As the initiator of the art event, Iryna Zhurenko, said, the idea to organize such an event to honor the world-famous artist and introduce Ukrainians and Chinese to her work arose a few months ago after several successful similar events were held, at which Chinese friends were introduced to the traditions, art, and customs of Ukraine.

"We wanted to hold an event that would inspire Ukrainians from the community in Beijing to discover, love, and popularize Ukrainian art – unique, authentic, deep, and ironic, and to introduce it to the Chinese," Zhurenko noted.

According to her, the active members of the Ukrainian community in Beijing intend to continue organizing similar artistic, cultural, and educational events for their compatriots and Chinese and to open new pages of the original Ukrainian culture.

For reference:

To celebrate Maria Prymachenko's birthday, the National Museum of Decorative Arts of Ukraine hosted a multimedia show called "Prymachenko: Year of the Dragon" as part of the exhibition "Maria Prymachenko: Unknown." The event brought the characters from her paintings to life, set to music by the group DakhaBrakha.

As previously reported, the National Museum of Decorative Arts of Ukraine in Kyiv opened the "Maria Prymachenko. Unknown" exhibition and presented the first virtual gallery of the artist's works.

Additionally, on November 21, the "Two Marias" exhibition opened at the National Reserve "Sophia of Kyiv." This exhibition honors the work of two remarkable Ukrainian naive artists, Maria Prymachenko and Maria Halushko.