Genetic Code - ART2080

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Spring, Diptych, Part 1

Oil on canvas

Genetic Code

In the project "Genetic Code", Myron Kataran focuses on portraits that reveal the genetic code of a nation. This is a logical continuation of the artist’s concept, through which he develops his idea and brings it to new horizons. At Art Salon Veles he had previously presented his abstract series "Ethnic Code," which impressed viewers with its co...

"Genetic Code" emphasizes female portraits interpreted through the prism of neo-cubism using palette-knife technique. Rejecting abstract synthetic cubism, the artist relies on the technical possibilities of the palette knife, while cubist stylization through the geometrization of the portrayed figures highlights the architectonics of their inner world. Just as Pablo Picasso broke his guitars and violins into separate structural elements in still lifes in search of inner "music," so Kataran, like a jeweler, "cuts" and crystallizes his heroines from the plane of the canvas through painting. In this way, the artist reveals the souls of the depicted women.

The focus on women is not accidental. A woman symbolizes the guardian of lineage and the continuation of traditions. Motherhood is one of the most beloved themes in art — from the Venus of Willendorf to the Madonnas of Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael — such is the path of this ideological thread. Folk tradition reflects this theme in ornamentation, as a kind of symbolic coding.

That is why the artist portrays women in traditional embroidered shirts — women who are confident in who they are, who have absorbed this identity with their mother’s milk, and who feel it deeply, called by the voice of their blood.

The artist himself outlines his idea as follows:

"The idea of the project is to preserve the identity, culture, and traditions of one’s land. The world is ruled not by politicians and their laws, but by signs and symbols."

That is why his heroines are not depicted in crowns or jeweled diadems; they are not crowned rulers. All his characters are free of "political jewelry." His women are worthy daughters of their lineage, "crowned" with traditional headdresses and wreaths — thus "crowned" in an entirely different sense. They are like the Madonnas of the Renaissance, who did not need halos for their divine essence to be recognized.

Myron Kataran is a complex artist whose projects always touch on relevant themes. Art Salon Veles once again gives admirers of contemporary Ukrainian art the opportunity to meet a Ukrainian author and a topic "on the cutting edge of time."

Ivan Dudych, art historian.