Olena Skytsyuk
Biography
Olena Skitsiuk (née Grafova) was born on January 16, 1950, in Kyiv to a family of artists, her father Ivan Skitsiuk and mother Marfa Tymchenko, a well-known second-generation Petrykivka painting master and a student of Tetiana Paty. The art of Petrykivka was passed down in the family as a native language.
In 1973, she graduated from the Lviv State Institute of Applied and Decorative Arts (now the Lviv National Academy of Arts), Department of Ceramics. Her teachers included Andrii Bokotey, Zenovii Flinta, and Yurii Lashchuk. Her graduation thesis was a tea and coffee set (supervised by Volodymyr Bashlo, grade “excellent”).
In 1973-1974, she worked at the Kyiv Experimental Ceramic and Art Factory (Vyshneve). She taught at the children’s studio “Mosaic” and at the school of folk art in Fastiv. From 1994 to 2000, she was a lecturer at the Kyiv Children’s Academy of Arts, and since 2000 - at the Kyiv State Institute of Decorative and Applied Arts and Design named after Mykhailo Boichuk, at the Department of Monumental Painting.
Member of the Union of Soviet Artists of Ukraine (now the National Union of Artists of Ukraine) since 1977, member of the National Union of Masters of Folk Art of Ukraine. Mother of the artist Olena Kulyk. He lives in Kyiv.
Artistic Practice
Master of Petrykivka painting and folk decorative painting. She combines the family Petrykivka tradition (through her mother Marfa Tymchenko) with academic ceramic education, which gives her a special sense of form, color and material.
Toy store “Skazka”
Olena Skitsiuk’s most famous work is the wall decoration of the toy store “Skazka” in Kyiv (1979), which she made together with her parents Marfa Tymchenko and Ivan Skitsiuk. The painting of the store lasted about a year and remained in the memory of several generations of Kyivites as one of the largest public works of Petrykivka painting in the capital. Art critics highly appreciated these murals, and in the early 2000s it was even proposed to open a museum or a studio of decorative painting in the store.
In 2002, the store was bought by the Europroduct concern (now RedHead Family Corporation), and during the reconstruction, the murals were covered with plasterboard for 15 years. In October 2017, the company announced the restoration of the murals by the students of Marfa Timchenko, who participated in the creation of the original.
Other works
- *Away from the World (1998)
- *Dawn Frost (1999)
- *Sun’s Eyes (2000)
Recognition
Laureate of the Kateryna Bilokur Prize (2011) and the Kyiv Art Prize (2011) - both in the same year, which testifies to the importance of her creative contribution. Participant in numerous regional, national and international exhibitions.