Yaryna Pylypenko

Biography

Yaryna Ulyanivna Pylypenko was born in 1893 in Petrykivka, in the same years as Nadiia Bilokin and almost next to Tetiana Pata. She signed her works as “Oryshka Pylypenchykha”-in the folk way, without any pretense of officialdom. This accurately reflected her character and style: since childhood, the artist worked in the vein of traditional “malivka” without breaking away from its origins.

She took part in the First Republican Exhibition of Ukrainian Folk Art in Kyiv and Moscow (1936), where her works were awarded a first-degree diploma. Next to her at the same exhibition were Tetiana Pata and Nadiia Bilokin, three artists who together laid the foundation for Petrykivka painting as a recognized phenomenon of Ukrainian culture.

In addition to painting, she was engaged in embroidery. She died in 1979.

Artistic Practice

Yaryna Pylypenko’s paintings grow directly out of the tradition of house murals - she never detached her work from the architectural environment in which she was supposed to live. Hence the organic affinity of her works with local vytynanky and embroidery: the same rhythms, the same monumental forms.

She painted mainly traditional bouquets of fantastic flowers, twigs and friezes for architectural decor. The colors are contrasting, the paints are aniline diluted with egg white. She combines the simplicity of the ornament with the monumentality of the main flower forms, and the scheme of the “bouquet” is developed into an independent artistic image.

The master’s heritage is a rare opportunity to touch the very origins of Petrykivka art, which has not yet been torn away from the walls of a village hut.

Recognition

Participant of the First Republican Exhibition of Ukrainian Folk Art (Kyiv-Moscow, 1936), awarded a first degree diploma. Her works are kept in the National Museum of Ukrainian Decorative Art, Dnipro Art Museum, and private collections.