Marta Pitchuk | Ukrainian Painter and Illustrator

About Marta Pitchuk

Marta Pitchuk is a gifted artist from Ukraine that is even now dwelling and doing work there. Pitchuk’s do the job is principally centered on conventional media like oil painting and graphite drawings. We at Hue&Eye a short while ago bought to interview her!

Let us start off from the fundamentals. What is your name and where by have you developed up?.

My name is Marta Pitchuk and I was born and grew up in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine.

When or how have you comprehended you required to become an artist?

I when attempted to remember exactly when I commenced portray, but I understood that I do not know myself without having a brush in my palms. My mother has an art and graphics diploma, and because childhood, I have had the prospect to notice the generation of her paintings. Just one of my most vivid childhood memories is when my mom worked on a duplicate of a small portrait of Lydia Delectorska, created by renowned French artist Henri Matisse. The entire system of development appeared like magic to me. Which is when I recognized that I wanted to devote myself to artwork. I continue to have, in truth, that portrait in my workshop.

I realized then that I required to review artwork and grow to be an artist.

Selecting which college to show up at and which system to go after was a daunting endeavor for me. I was most amazed by the Monumental Portray important supplied at various establishments, searching several artwork systems at universities across Ukraine. The paintings on the walls at these faculties did not specifically curiosity me then. But the application appealed to me mainly because it permitted me to grow to be acquainted with numerous inventive approaches: stained glass, mosaic, fresco, sgraffito, encaustics, and so forth. Yet another cause I chose this big is that entrance exams for this software ended up difficult it gave me self-assurance that this plan experienced high expectations for long run artists.

For me, being an artist is a purely natural contacting. My workday does not stop when I near the workshop. Even at dwelling, I consider about what I was producing that day I search for new ideas and stay in the captivity of my inventive considered. Even if my paintings were being not appealing to any person, I would still keep building them simply because portray is part of who I am.

And how would you like folks to engage with your art?

When I created the very first Motanka, I felt that this precise picture demonstrates who I am as an artist at this phase of my lifestyle. In my paintings, an inanimate doll passes through time, travels from past centuries to the existing, and turns into a woman of flesh and blood. The dwelling Motanka is no extended an object but a human being with her character, thoughts, and sights. She is the embodiment of the previous that arrived to everyday living.

I explore the ethnic areas of Ukraine, trying to obtain something specific and exceptional in them. Each of my is effective is devoted to a distinct location, so it is an anthropological examine. The value and mission of my paintings are that they communicate the electricity and electricity of a Ukrainian woman who evokes and encourages the viewer to admire their roots.

Can you briefly describe your inventive system and tell us what drives you to make artwork?

My painting concepts occur in several different approaches, normally in my sleep. It’s almost like a mirage, just one particular certain motion or picture. It is never ever a specific impression of a portray but one particular essential detail or ingredient, like the movement of fur in the wind. When this eyesight arrives to me, I right away put it on the canvas. This singular eyesight later becomes the foundation for the full portray.

The concepts for paintings occur to me from somewhere. My undertaking in everyday living is to pay attention to these strategies, recognize them, and depict them on canvas. I really do not arrive up with them they want to be born by way of me. I’m just a mechanism through which they can take place.

The state of my soul in producing my artworks may differ. I paint some of my artworks pretty swiftly, with a whole lot of dynamism. Some others will need to just take their time. I generally leave the paintings that need to have to wait around to deal with the wall for up to a year. Only when her time arrives can I transform her about and end the artwork in a couple of several hours. Each painting is diverse, each individual with its distinctive temper and solution.

Functioning on an graphic of a Motanka, I totally element her facial functions, and only then do I go over it with painted threads so that Motanka may perhaps have a soul. It gets not only a beautiful picture but also a deep reflection of her very own thoughts, emotions, and activities. If you glimpse intently, you can see a woman’s gaze in the middle of the picture beneath a layer of paint.

Which artist principally conjures up your get the job done? And is there a little something else, outside visual arts, that retains you inspired?

It is my day to day daily life that inspires my perform the most. I generally attract inspiration from adventures by the Ukrainian countryside, exactly where I look for out antique headdresses, embroidered shirts, and traditional interior decor. Examining the traditional ethnic motifs certain to the several artifacts I explore and obtaining the model of do the job from which I draw inspiration is what I goal at. Also to variety the central tenets of my strategy from the tempera fashion, exactly where you commence with a dark background. I borrow the process for illuminating the image from a tempera spiritual portray. I like the plan of painting light on to a dim qualifications relatively than the common way of portray shadows on a light-weight backdrop.

The continued journey to uncover more about my previous and the history of Ukraine keeps me motivated. My “Motanka” collection began after I identified a conventional Hutsul headdress referred to as a чільце (chiltse) in my previous loved ones house. In my absolutely free time, I analysis conventional Ukrainian apparel, caps, and other historical relics to breathe new existence into the symbolism of the past.

As a electronic artist, do you really feel you have been waiting around for something like NFTs for a prolonged time?

My art is conventional portray, and I imagine I will continue on to paint in this medium and base my exhibits all-around this bodily artwork design and style for a whilst. My husband and I also create a ton of street art murals throughout Ukraine. I like the juxtaposition in between the bleak Soviet substantial-rise structures and the extremely adorned, folksy Motanka heroines. Staying ready to check out new mediums and techniques to express myself and share my artwork is at the main of my get the job done.

A foundation of my perform is not to be scared of blunders. I’m not fearful to lay down strokes that I will afterwards need to have to address up and devote several hours of my time obtaining it appropriate. All of my artwork provides this private independence. As an artist, I really feel I have to be in a point out of perpetual soul look for.

I noticed the transition into NFTs as a organic up coming stage to bringing traditions and past artifacts into modern-day-day daily life and reinvigorating the symbolism of the earlier. I truly feel that it’s the vital job of every Ukrainian painter to clearly show our rich and outstanding tradition to the planet.

In times of war predominantly, NFTs have provided an critical way for me to continue on to share my artwork and historical sides of Ukraine. I hope to contribute to this by sharing my NFTs, bringing awareness to my tradition, and supporting the reduction efforts by donating proceeds from profits of my NFTs to the exceptional companies performing tirelessly to deliver support each individual day in Ukraine.

And how do you see the NFT planet will gain your specialist profession?

I provided my artwork as NFT to assist support my nation in dire want. It is incredibly tough to transport merchandise across our borders correct now, but NFTs, and crypto in basic, deliver a borderless, decentralized atmosphere for exchanging merchandise and revenue. NFTs authorized me to use my artwork to increase funds for organizations carrying out wonderful function on the front lines each and every working day, risking their lives to help Ukraine. NFTs have also offered me with a medium as a result of which I can share the historical past of Ukraine by way of my paintings with a broader audience and elevate consciousness of the brutal treatment the Russians are inflicting on Ukraine.

Distribute the term! Do you have nearly anything exciting on the horizon?

At the commencing of June 2022, I launched a undertaking with Devvio, a blockchain enterprise. The project is on their GlassBlock marketplace. As a result of NFTs for Ukraine (NFTsForUkraine.io), we are providing NFTs of 7 of my paintings, a single of which is referred to as the Victory Motanka of Kyiv Polissia, which I produced when the war waged outside my studio. I would usually be portray and would have to end my operate for the reason that I could listen to bombing exterior.

The do the job I have for sale is accessible to any person who would like to assist Ukraine though securing a unique Ukrainian heritage and culture instant.

I have incorporated higher-resolution pictures of these 7 NFTs. Even so, I would be content to mail in excess of 2 of them as NFTs, valued and $25 and $2,000, respectively.

The art is element of my “Motanka” Series, depicting the common Ukrainian Motanka talisman, with roots in ancestral memory and symbolizing safety from evil, hope for a much better foreseeable future, and fertility.

Comply with Marthe Pichuk on Instagram >