Dmytro Koval. Ex humo. The Earth Speaks Through Light

The exhibition Ex humo (Latin for "from the earth") is named after an image that becomes its conceptual core and point of entry into the exhibition. The project is built around the earth as a space of memory, light, and continuous renewal. It appears not merely as a landscape motif, but as an environment from which images, color, and the very sense of home emerge.

Dmytro Koval’s artistic practice focuses on exploring painting as a multilayered structure. Working with color, texture, and light, the artist creates canvases in which the image gradually takes shape through the interaction of numerous layers of paint. What matters is not only the motif itself, but also the process through which it emerges on the surface of the canvas.

At the center of Dmytro Koval’s work is the landscape, which goes beyond a conventional depiction of nature. Earth, trees, flowers, and female figures appear as interconnected elements of a unified artistic space. The artist is interested not in the documentary representation of what he sees, but in the possibility of speaking through natural imagery about memory, time, life, and the inner connection between people and the world.

One of the defining features of Dmytro Koval’s painting is his work with light. Light does not exist as an external effect; rather, it emerges from within the very structure of the painting through the layering of color, tonal transitions, and texture. Even the dark areas of his canvases remain saturated with color, gradually revealing themselves through attentive contemplation.

The exhibition Ex humo continues the artist’s sustained interest in the themes of light, nature, and the inner state of the human being. At the same time, the project has a more restrained and contemplative character, presenting painting as a space for a slow dialogue in which the experience of attentive seeing is more important than the narrative itself.

Opening in August, when Ukraine celebrates Independence Day, the exhibition inevitably gives the title Ex humo another dimension. The earth emerges as a space of memory, continuity, and home — something that remains with a person regardless of time and circumstances.

Dmytro Koval was born in 1990 in Khotyn. He studied at the Taras Shevchenko State Art Secondary School and the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture, graduating with honors. He worked in the creative studio of Academician Vasyl Hurin. Since 2017, he has been a member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine.

He works in oil painting and monumental-sacred painting techniques. He has participated in national and international exhibition projects and is a laureate of state and international art awards and distinctions.

The exhibition runs through August 24.

Zenyk Art Gallery, 
7 Shota Rustaveli Street, Lviv.