Golub (Holub), Olena
Olena Golub (also spelled Holub) is a Ukrainian contemporary artist known for her work in digital art, collage, and painting. She is also an art historian and writer, representing the Ukrainian New Wave movement. Golub is a member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine, and her works have been exhibited USA, Canada, the Netherlands, South Korea, Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Poland, Austria, and Hungary. Her artworks are part of the collections at the Taras Shevchenko National Museum, the Museum of the Sixties, the National Art Museum of Ukraine, the Museum of Pannonhalma Archabbey in Hungary, and other institutions.
Golub lived in Kyiv until 2022. Following the Russian-Ukrainian war, she relocated to California, USA, as a refugee. She graduated from the Taras Shevchenko University with a degree in biophysics and from the Institute of Journalistic Skill with a focus on press art. Golub has worked as an engineer, magazine illustrator, and publishing house editor. She has authored over 100 publications on contemporary art.
Golub's career began in opposition to Socialist Realism, working within a circle of Ukrainian underground artists. During this time, she wrote in the style of expressionism. She was an active participant in the avant-garde youth movement in Kyiv, which was part of the Rukh Movement. Golub documented her experiences from this period in her book The Bright and Gloomy Days of Underground Artists: Biography of Two Artists Not Recognized During Their Lifetime, with Comments, published by Antiquary Publishing House in Kyiv in 2017. https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/99110297443506421
Olena Golub began to create photo installations using computer technology. By confronting and comparing various historical photographic materials she is in the process of solving philosophical problems of existence itself and human society. She has found considerable opportunities to create own visual language using digital technology and based on "mental structures". The artist responded to the historical events in which she participated with a series of media works in mixed media. The events on the Maidan evoked vivid emotions and hopes for the democratic European development of Ukraine. At the same time, Russia's aggression was approaching the country like a black cloud and required significant resistance forces. Her works did not simply document what she saw, but made sense of the events and supported the resistance to the occupiers, glorified the fighters for the national idea.
With the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2014 Olena Golub expresses her civic position with a series of anti-war digital works and participates in exhibitions in Ukraine, Bulgaria, France, USA.
Series "Invasion" (2014-2015)
Above the traditional genre of admiring nature, the artist presents evidence of the indomitable struggle for freedom and independence, which began during the Revolution of Dignity and the beginning of the military occupation in the east of Ukraine.
Series "Wooden Sunrise" (2010-2011)
The unreal world, modeled by wooden sculptures and textures, visualizes the essence and contradictions in the existing reality. These are allegories of events of high emotional tension that arise in the interaction of personal and social.
Series "Signals of inexact time" (2003-2005)
A reinterpretation of the past that has implications in the present, through emotional associations and beyond chronology. Comparison of family stories with events in society based on photo documents, posters, postcards, etc. The focus is on the survival of the individual in the period of totalitarian pressure, the difficult conditions of the Second World War.
Series "Bronze Age, Asphalt Period" (2018)
Metamorphoses of historical and mental transformations helps to embody the image of a bronze figurine of a prehistoric musician, which is present on each sheet in different plots. The surreal juxtaposition of numerous artifacts from Ukrainian life, such as fragments of embroidery, streets and railways, Scythian, totalitarian and modern statues, posters with instructions, attributes of war and trade, reproduces the emotional atmosphere and philosophical reflection of the difficult struggle of Ukrainians for a better future.
Series "Grusha's Gifts" (2019)
The plots of the digital collages revolve around the characters created by the sculptor Grusha (Grygory Stolbchenko), a friend of the artist who passed away early. He gave the world expressive works that speak in the compositions of the current wartime and emphasize the predatory and insidious features of the enemy.
Series "Isolation" (2019-2021)
Study of the extremely undesirable and unnatural state of isolation (separation) for both man and society and the energy to overcome it. Those who were isolated during the Covid-19 epidemic to stop the spread of the virus felt the unbearable state of quarantine. Two regions of Ukraine, occupied by a neighboring state, found themselves in the same negative separative state, which led to the start of hostilities for their return. The concentration of will and spiritual forces of the people gradually overcomes temporary painful circumstances.
Series "Under War Sky" (2022)
For the basis of the series, the artist chose one of the felt-tip pen drawings that she nervously made in the first days of the full-scale war. Overcoming feelings of confusion and fear, she visually transformed the chaotic lines with a digital program into an ornamentally ordered image of the sky and created a colorful metaphor for the protection of the country and people. Documentary evidence of the sad scenes of the destruction of war absorbs the bright heavenly glow and instills faith in the victory of beauty and goodness.
Series "Space" (2023)
Visualization of the life-giving forces of creativity that transform the traumatic experiences of Ukrainians during the war. The titles of the sheets indicate the dates of the artist's graphic impressions after the bombing of Kyiv on February 24, 2022. Overcoming feelings of confusion and fear, she transformed the chaotic lines with a digital program into a vision of new mental spaces based on rhythm, symmetry and brightness of colors. On the basis of traditional folk ornament, she demonstrated catharsis, which lifts a person above negative emotions. With her imagination, the artist directs these fruits of spiritual work to the Universe, hoping for an answer - the establishment of general harmony and justice, the advent of victory and peace.
Series "Steps to Revival" (2023)
A visual performance in which the author plays the role of an interactive viewer who intervenes in the plot. The image is a collage of photographs, fragments of paintings by Ukrainians O. Golub and L. Pisha, as well as graffiti by Banksy (Great Britain) and Guemy (France), created on houses destroyed by Russian aggressors in Kyiv, Irpіn, Borodyanка, etc. With the hope of their reconstruction, the author carries a palm branch on her shoulders - a symbol of victory and peace, which complements the optimistic theme of the drawings of the graffiti artists.
Series "Victory of Light" (2023)
Digital collages combining transformed photos of Kyiv streets where life is constantly raging, the author's diary drawings with the date of their creation, etc. The construction of the compositions elevates bright human feelings and hope for victory over dark, falling enemy forces.
Series "Neo-constructions" (2024)
Digital collages in the style of neoconstructionism, which is related to the avant-garde of the beginning of the 20th century, demonstrate the driving force of energy stored in the structure and symbols of Ukrainian ornament. This traditional visual code protects the nation in its age-old struggle for freedom and independence. In the current times of war, neo-constructions help transform the horrors of destruction into beauty, the rhythm of life and love.
