Hanna Sydorenko belongs to the circle of artists with a secluded artistic practice outside of well-known artistic associations, groups, or art movements. Sydorenko developed her practice and established herself as an artist during the 1990s–2000s, and in the 2010s collaborated with the “Heri Bowman Gallery” in Lviv, curating exhibitions in the city.
Sydorenko was born in the Donetsk region in 1958. She studied at the Luhansk Art School and later moved to study at the Kharkiv Art and Industrial Institute (now the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts). Since the mid-1990s, the artist has lived in Lviv.
Sydorenko began her artistic practice in the mid-1980s, simultaneously teaching at the Donetsk Art School. Early works include student plein air pieces, painting, and graphics, for example, a graphic self-portrait created by the artist in Lviv against the backdrop of the metal fence on Armenian Street. This work became iconic for Sydorenko due to embedding herself into the landscape of Lviv, to which the artist would permanently move 10 years later. Similar autobiographical nodes in the author’s practice would subsequently define her development and changes in thematic and visual features.
The early period of Hanna Sydorenko’s practice is characterized by an interest in abstract minimalist forms, such as in the graphic work “Unanswered Question. Dedicated to Yves Klein” from 1991, emphasizing thin colored linear geometric shapes that visually seem to break on the textured chalk surface of the paper. Or an interest in relief monochrome painting that focuses the viewer’s attention on nuances of texture, tone, and color. Among these are now lost works from the Sedniv plein airs (1988–1991), where the author experimented and created volumes by layering and literally building up the texture of the canvas: for example, a thread monochromatic to the canvas, embedded into the surface and noticeable only upon close examination as a textural element of the painted surface; or the triptych “Compositions” from 1992 with a cord on the surface of the paintings in various configurations, tinted respectively in gold, bronze, and silver colors. This was a brief period of creating object painting, where canvases partially acquired features of assemblage and transformed into spatial painted forms.
Hanna Sydorenko went beyond pictoriality in the early 1990s. Together with Lviv artist Serhiy Yakunin, she created land art installations that expand the author’s practice regarding working with objects in a given space. During the Sedniv plein airs on the surface of a frozen river, the artists created several joint land art installations from natural elements, which changed not only due to weather conditions but also from the interaction of local residents with them.
Among the joint land art projects in the Sedniv landscape, it is worth highlighting Hanna Sydorenko’s individual work — the spatial ready-made installation “Buckets” from 1991. The artist formed an installation in the shape of a column from frost-damaged buckets as an allusion to everyday life, a homage to the famous sculpture “Endless Column” by Romanian artist Constantin Brâncuși. Such a symbolic form belongs to the mythological pre-Christian image of the “axis of the world,” which is widespread in the mythological concepts of various peoples. This and other works highlight a thematic-ideological line in Hanna Sydorenko’s practice, which in various artistic forms transformed either into a method of working with the object or became a theme of artistic expression — a fascination with meditative, mythological, and sacred attributes aimed at rethinking their layered meanings and turning to the essence of forms.
Such sacred instruments and means of expression also appropriately include images of her lost works, such as the practice of painting stones in the river to emphasize their radiance in the water and, through this artistic image, appeal to the primal basis of form and light. Such works also include installations in gold and silver materials, which, according to the artist, are not colors but pure ideas in artworks: gold, silver, black, and white colors should be considered certain ideological tuning forks, sacred loads, and hidden mysteries. Gold is associative, and in painting it refers to icon painting, and as stones under water — to fossil, primal values. Or a piece of fabric on a rod as an embodiment of the image of a banner, a bearer of symbolic religious meaning.
Using artifacts of nature, Hanna Sydorenko seemingly plays with them in space, each time revealing an added meaning and nuance of perceiving the context of a particular environment. She created her works in residencies and natural locations in situ (from Latin “on site”), focusing on the environment. They seem to mark the space, distinguishing it from the landscape.
Thus, the theme of triplicity is distinguished in Sydorenko’s practice; often the spaces themselves dictated it — in a tripartite exposition and sequence of installations, there is initially an internal dramaturgy and logic of narrative development. Another theme is the embodiment through oneself and the individual experience of the collective image of femininity. To some extent, such autobiographicality is manifested in her photo-performance “Moon Phases” from 1996, the archive work “Hospital” from 1997, and the installation “99 Steps” from 2003.
The artist’s method lies in processuality, attention to optical and kinetic nuances of the object’s existence in space. Places and situations seemingly activate her to create a certain reaction, revealing a certain meditativeness and delicate introduction of artistic form into the natural environment. Such methods of working with space are inspired by Buddhist philosophy and slow contemplation. Buddhist meditativeness and poeticism pass through the artist’s practice indirectly, rather tangentially, through context and non-violent interaction with the natural environment.
The artist reluctantly names her works, thus leaving them open to interpretations: “The created artwork is a found balance between you and the environment. Any violation of this balance (especially the introduction of a title) is like slightly opening someone else’s secret or misleading the viewer. That is why most of our works have no titles” [5]. According to the artist, the viewer’s introduction of an individual vision in interpreting artworks is an experience of contemplation equal to the artistic experience of creation.
The artist occupies a special place in the history of environmental art in Ukraine and is also distinguished by a systematic and linear development of her own practice throughout the 1990s–2000s. Hanna Sydorenko’s art visualizes the interconnections between elements and between humans and the environment. She constructs her artistic expressions using a wide arsenal of media, including photography, video, performance, archival work, site-specific installation, and land art. Works involving the transfer of natural objects into the white cube gallery space are connected with the artist’s experience in creating land art objects, and the tools of her artistic practice become water, wood, feathers, sand, stone, ice, sun, steam — embodiments of the four elements of nature. Meanwhile, the experience of creating joint artworks and exhibition projects together with Serhiy Yakunin, Hlib Vysheslavskyi, the ACADEMIA Group, and artist Akelay Zell later manifested in Hanna Sydorenko’s curatorial practice at the “Heri Bowman Gallery” in Lviv [3] [8].
Bibliography
- Furdiak, Oleksa. Cruelty as a Fashion Phenomenon… hopeless. Anna Sydorenko, Serhiy Yakunin/ EXCESsus. 1998-1999/ — http://artmedium.com.ua/archives/536
- Libet, Svitlana. Imaginary Dialogue: about the exhibition “Why there will be women artists in Lviv”/YourArt, dated 21.02.2021. — https://supportyourart.com/stories/uyavnyj-dialog-pro-vystavku-chomu-u-lvovi-budut-hudozhnyczi/
- Mysiuga, Bohdan. 10 years of Heri Bowman Gallery/ zbruc.eu, dated 21.05.2020. — https://zbruc.eu/node/97845
- Vysheslavskyi Hlib, Sydor-Hibelinda Oleh // Terminology of Contemporary Art, Paris-Kyiv, Terra Incognita, 2010. — pp. 227-235.
- Environmental Art. Ukraine 1989–2010: Album — Kyiv: “Sofiya-A”, 2010. — 200 p.: ill. 342
- Shiller, Valeria. Sedniv Plein Airs/ KORYDOR, dated 26.05.2017. — http://www.korydor.in.ua/ua/glossary/sednev-plenery.html
- Video documentation of the project “3/3”, 1993. Authors Serhiy Yakunin, Hanna Sydorenko, Hlib Vysheslavskyi/ mitec.ua dated 14.03.2016 — https://mitec.ua/retrospektiva-jakunina-3-3/
- Katerynenko, Nata. Conversation with Hanna Sydorenko about 10 years of activity of the “Heri Bowman Gallery”/ mitec.ua, dated 25.05.2020. — https://mitec.ua/10-rokiv-diyalnosti-galereyi-geri-boumena/
Comment type: Summary
Author: Halyna Hleba
