Hello. This is Ihor Lisnyi — editor-in-chief and founder of the Petrykivka project.

Let me start from the beginning, because it matters for understanding where this project came from.

I’ve been researching and promoting Petrykivka painting for a long time — both as a researcher and as a popularizer. At various points I ran the “Petrykivka-Petrykivka” Facebook page, built the site petrykivka.dp.ua, published yearly calendars featuring the painting, interviewed masters, and organized both virtual and physical exhibitions. I was also the one who came up with the idea of making Petrykivka painting the logo of Eurovision 2017, which was set to take place in Ukraine.

Later, other projects and matters took over my life, and for a while I stepped back from actively supporting this cause. But I never truly left Petrykivka behind. Instead, I began a new, much deeper investigation — into the roots of the painting, its symbolism, the biographies of well-known masters (Pata, Bilokin, Sokolenko, Tymchenko), and the work of those who studied the painting before me (Stativa, Evenbakh, Berchenko, Hlukhelka, Tverska, Smolii). Over the past ten years I’ve built up a substantial collection of artifacts — from artworks to rare publications.

But that’s not what I want to highlight right now. What matters today is that I’ve launched a site — an encyclopedia dedicated to Petrykivka painting, its masters, their works, and everything else important surrounding it.

Where this project came from

I’d been carrying the idea of a resource like this for a long time. What used to hold it back was simple — it required significant investment of money, time, and resources I didn’t have. But now AI makes it possible to bring ideas like this to life much faster and cheaper. That’s how this project came about: everything I’ve gathered and researched over the years is turning into a large, comprehensive encyclopedia of Petrykivka painting. It’s only just beginning to fill out, but the foundation is already there.

What we’ve achieved in three months

The main milestone is behind us — launching the site and its first wave of content:

• the site already features biographies of key masters of Petrykivka painting;
• the gallery holds enough works to properly examine and compare them;
• the painting centers section is gradually growing;
• new materials keep appearing — articles, sources, videos.

But the most important part, in my view, is that the site has a full English-language version. That makes it accessible to a much wider audience. Early statistics confirm this: about 30% of site visits are to English-language content.

I also want to mention the wallpaper generator featuring Petrykivka motifs — a modern digital souvenir you can create for yourself in a few clicks, right in your browser. This is the feature of the project I’m personally most happy with. If you haven’t tried it yet, you really should.

What’s next

There’s still a lot of work ahead. The next major stage is a full fact-check of all the material on the site. So if you’re using the site for research purposes, I’d currently recommend cross-checking facts against additional sources — that work isn’t finished yet.

In closing

I’m genuinely glad this project finally came to life. It’s the result of many years of collecting, observing, and a love for this subject that has long since become personal to me.

If you have any questions, remarks, or suggestions, feel free to write to me at the email listed in the Contacts section.

See you again here on the blog. I hope to write about project updates more often.

Ihor Lisnyi, editor-in-chief and founder of the “Petrykivka.org” project