Marta Pitchuk | Ukrainian Painter and Illustrator

About Marta Pitchuk

Marta Pitchuk is a gifted artist from Ukraine that is nevertheless dwelling and operating there. Pitchuk’s get the job done is largely centered on regular media like oil portray and graphite drawings. We at Hue&Eye not too long ago acquired to job interview her!

Let us commence from the fundamental principles. What is your name and where by have you grown up?.

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

When or how have you comprehended you needed to turn out to be an artist?

I after attempted to remember exactly when I begun painting, but I recognized that I really don’t know myself with out a brush in my fingers. My mom has an art and graphics degree, and since childhood, I have had the option to observe the creation of her paintings. Just one of my most vivid childhood memories is when my mother labored on a duplicate of a compact portrait of Lydia Delectorska, produced by renowned French artist Henri Matisse. The full course of action of generation seemed like magic to me. That’s when I realized that I wanted to dedicate myself to art. I still have, indeed, that portrait in my workshop.

I understood then that I wanted to research artwork and grow to be an artist.

Picking out which college to go to and which system to go after was a daunting task for me. I was most amazed by the Monumental Painting main provided at numerous establishments, browsing numerous artwork applications at universities throughout Ukraine. The paintings on the walls at these educational facilities did not especially desire me then. But the method appealed to me because it authorized me to come to be acquainted with quite a few inventive approaches: stained glass, mosaic, fresco, sgraffito, encaustics, and many others. Yet another reason I selected this main is that entrance exams for this application have been tough it gave me self-confidence that this application experienced superior criteria for upcoming artists.

For me, getting an artist is a purely natural calling. My workday does not stop when I near the workshop. Even at dwelling, I believe about what I was producing that working day I glance for new suggestions and reside in the captivity of my inventive thought. Even if my paintings were not interesting to any one, I would even now preserve building them mainly because portray is aspect of who I am.

And how would you like folks to interact with your artwork?

When I built the to start with Motanka, I felt that this certain impression demonstrates who I am as an artist at this phase of my everyday living. In my paintings, an inanimate doll passes by means of time, travels from past hundreds of years to the existing, and turns into a girl of flesh and blood. The residing Motanka is no more time an item but a human being with her character, ideas, and views. She is the embodiment of the previous that arrived to lifestyle.

I explore the ethnic areas of Ukraine, trying to come across one thing particular and unique in them. Every of my works is devoted to a precise region, so it is an anthropological study. The price and mission of my paintings are that they communicate the vitality and electric power of a Ukrainian woman who inspires and encourages the viewer to admire their roots.

Can you briefly explain your resourceful system and explain to us what drives you to make art?

My portray suggestions arrive in a lot of distinct methods, normally in my snooze. It is pretty much like a mirage, just just one specific movement or image. It is by no means a specific image of a painting but one important depth or component, like the motion of fur in the wind. When this eyesight comes to me, I quickly put it on the canvas. This singular eyesight later becomes the basis for the overall painting.

The suggestions for paintings arrive to me from somewhere. My job in life is to hear to these thoughts, understand them, and depict them on canvas. I really don’t appear up with them they want to be born by means of me. I’m just a mechanism through which they can materialize.

The state of my soul in producing my artworks varies. I paint some of my artworks very promptly, with a lot of dynamism. Some others will need to acquire their time. I frequently depart the paintings that want to wait around to encounter the wall for up to a 12 months. Only when her time comes can I change her about and finish the artwork in a few hours. Every single painting is distinctive, each and every with its exclusive mood and approach.

Doing the job on an impression of a Motanka, I wholly detail her facial features, and only then do I include it with painted threads so that Motanka might have a soul. It turns into not only a wonderful image but also a deep reflection of her very own ideas, thoughts, and ordeals. If you glance closely, you can see a woman’s gaze in the middle of the picture below a layer of paint.

Which artist generally inspires your get the job done? And is there a thing else, outside visual arts, that retains you motivated?

It is my day to day lifetime that conjures up my do the job the most. I frequently attract inspiration from adventures as a result of the Ukrainian countryside, wherever I seek out antique headdresses, embroidered shirts, and conventional inside decor. Examining the common ethnic motifs precise to the various artifacts I discover and finding the fashion of do the job from which I draw inspiration is what I intention at. Also to kind the central tenets of my strategy from the tempera model, where you start with a dark background. I borrow the method for illuminating the impression from a tempera religious portray. I like the notion of painting light onto a darkish background alternatively than the conventional way of painting shadows on a mild backdrop.

The continued journey to learn far more about my previous and the heritage of Ukraine keeps me enthusiastic. My “Motanka” collection commenced soon after I discovered a common Hutsul headdress termed a чільце (chiltse) in my aged family members household. In my absolutely free time, I research common Ukrainian outfits, caps, and other historic relics to breathe new lifetime into the symbolism of the earlier.

As a digital artist, do you come to feel you have been waiting for one thing like NFTs for a extended time?

My art is conventional portray, and I imagine I will proceed to paint in this medium and base my exhibits all-around this physical artwork design for a when. My spouse and I also produce a lot of street art murals across Ukraine. I like the juxtaposition involving the bleak Soviet large-rise structures and the hugely adorned, folksy Motanka heroines. Remaining able to discover new mediums and techniques to express myself and share my art is at the main of my operate.

A foundation of my do the job is not to be worried of errors. I’m not afraid to lay down strokes that I will later need to have to deal with up and expend hrs of my time finding it ideal. All of my artwork brings this particular flexibility. As an artist, I really feel I have to be in a point out of perpetual soul lookup.

I noticed the changeover into NFTs as a all-natural following action to bringing traditions and previous artifacts into modern-day lifetime and reinvigorating the symbolism of the past. I truly feel that it’s the essential task of each and every Ukrainian painter to clearly show our wealthy and outstanding society to the earth.

In instances of war predominantly, NFTs have furnished an essential way for me to carry on to share my artwork and historic aspects of Ukraine. I hope to lead to this by sharing my NFTs, bringing awareness to my culture, and supporting the relief attempts by donating proceeds from product sales of my NFTs to the great organizations doing work tirelessly to supply help each and every day in Ukraine.

And how do you see the NFT environment will profit your specialist career?

I provided my art as NFT to assist aid my country in dire need to have. It is extremely tricky to transport merchandise throughout our borders right now, but NFTs, and crypto in basic, provide a borderless, decentralized natural environment for exchanging goods and dollars. NFTs authorized me to use my artwork to raise funds for companies doing fantastic work on the entrance strains each working day, jeopardizing their life to assist Ukraine. NFTs have also delivered me with a medium by means of which I can share the heritage of Ukraine through my paintings with a broader viewers and increase consciousness of the brutal cure the Russians are inflicting upon Ukraine.

Distribute the phrase! Do you have something thrilling on the horizon?

At the commencing of June 2022, I released a project with Devvio, a blockchain company. The project is on their GlassBlock market. By way of NFTs for Ukraine (NFTsForUkraine.io), we are providing NFTs of 7 of my paintings, one particular of which is named the Victory Motanka of Kyiv Polissia, which I developed though the war waged outside the house my studio. I would typically be portray and would have to prevent my operate since I could hear bombing outside.

The function I have for sale is available to any one who wants to aid Ukraine when securing a unique Ukrainian background and tradition second.

I have integrated high-resolution photographs of these 7 NFTs. However, I would be pleased to send out in excess of 2 of them as NFTs, valued and $25 and $2,000, respectively.

The artwork is portion of my “Motanka” Collection, depicting the conventional Ukrainian Motanka talisman, with roots in ancestral memory and symbolizing safety from evil, hope for a much better long run, and fertility.

Observe Marthe Pichuk on Instagram >