The Museum of Kyiv History continues the exhibition “Emotional Invasion” – a philosophical and psychological art show presenting ceramic sculptures and paintings by contemporary Ukrainian artists Nadiia Nechkina and Liudmyla Davydenko. Both artists delve into the existential depths of human experience and explore complex emotional states of people. The exhibition aims to encourage viewers to reflect on human existence, their own lived experience, and the search for resources, inner harmony, and strength to fight during the war unleashed by russia in Ukraine.
The curators of the exhibition “Emotional Invasion,” Iryna Zhyhulina and Nata Kushniruk, through the works of the artists, will lead a philosophical narrative about the emotional reactions of people in Ukraine at different stages of the war. Through the language of contemporary art, the artists speak about how each of us feels anxiety, fear, pain, hatred, cold anger, emptiness, and later seeks inner harmony, hope, faith, and strength for further struggle. Nadiia Nechkina is a Ukrainian ceramic artist and participant in numerous international exhibitions. Nadiia is a certified psychotherapist who works with the method of psychoanalysis. That is why she often turns to the concepts of psychoanalysis by Jacques Lacan and Carl Gustav Jung in her works. For Nadiia, ceramics is a language, images and forms are words. Through ceramics, she expresses her emotions and feelings. Most often, her works are a product of the unconscious, which also carries fragments of the collective unconscious. Nechkina’s works are held in the art collections of the World Bank in Washington, the War Museum / NGO “Museum of Contemporary Art,” the National Museum-Reserve of Ukrainian Pottery in Opishne, and private collections in Ukraine, Lithuania, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and Portugal.
Lyudmyla Davydenko is a renowned Ukrainian artist, participant in numerous group exhibitions and plein airs, and a recipient of awards and distinctions for her work in painting and sculpture. Lyudmyla works in the field of abstract-associative painting. The foundation of her artistic research lies in reflections on human capabilities during existential crises. Emotional experiences and personal history intertwine on her multilayered canvases in the form of delicate interwoven lines resembling a rhizome, which literally means “root system” or a network of nonlinear connections. Her art can also be interpreted through the lens of poststructuralist concepts by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. The artist’s works have been exhibited at ART ZURICH, Art Paris, RHY Art Fire Basel, Lviv Art Week, and are part of private collections in Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the USA, France, Spain, and Switzerland.
The emotionally complex ceramic sculptures of Nadiia Nechkina and the abstract-associative canvases of Lyudmyla Davydenko form a particularly profound narrative about the value of human connections, mutual support, the struggle for peace, and, broadly, the survival of Ukrainians as a nation. Using different creative media, the artists explore the dichotomy between the eternal beauty of nature and the harsh realities of war in Ukraine. Against the backdrop of daily enemy missile strikes, they examine timeless themes of life and death, good and evil, strength and weakness, devastation and harmony, inviting viewers to join them on this existential journey.