Art and artists. Kateryna Bilokur (Копия)

1) The story of an outstanding Ukrainian painter, a representative of “Naive art”, Kateryna

Bilokur is an amazing one. She received no formal education and her daily life was one of

sorrowful, hard physical labour and household chores. She was a self-taught master of primitive

art and decorative folk painting, and her desire to paint was extreme. She was so eager to

pursue art that fashioned her own paintbrushes and formulated her own paints from beet juice,

berries, onions, herbs and whatever she could find. The girl was at labour all day and only

painted during the night, until she could no longer stay awake. She tried to gain entrance to art

school in the 1920th, but since she had no certificate of having completed “seven-year-school,”

she had no chance. She also had little opportunity to see and study the works of other artists.

2)As an artist she did not depict emotions, she depicted

the subjects that produce emotions. The majority of her

creations feature extremely vivid, lively and colourful floral

scenes displaying lush collections of flowers and fruits in

natural settings. She painted gardens, orchards, and fields;

still lifes; and she also had several portraits and self-portraits.

Her paintings display originality and great attention to detail.

They could have existed organically within any era, say critics

from different countries.

3) By sheer force of unstoppable will and desire, Bilokur

painted her heart out and eventually began to produce a body

of work that others could not help but notice. By the 1930s,

she was said to have become a master. Her works caught the

eye of a famous Ukrainian singer Oksana Petrusenko, who

helped get her art placed in shows and galleries, where it could

gain wider appreciation from the art community.

4) Some of her paintings eventually found their way to Europe, where none other than Pablo

Picasso not only viewed her work, but became entranced, staring at her paintings for hours, as

if in a dream. When he saw them, the great artist exclaimed: “If we had a painter of this level

of skill, we would make the whole world talking about her!” Kateryna Bilokur was named the

“People’s Artist of Ukraine,” which is an incredibly high honour. Her image was issued on a

Ukrainian coin and her works are preserved at the National Museum of Ukrainian Decorative Folk

Art. It is likely that her magnificent work will live for centuries to come and be considered among

the most precious masterpieces of the world.