The amazing creativity and biography of Maria Priymachenko

Maria Ovksentevna Primachenko is a master of Ukrainian "naive art", she has borne a thirst to create all through her life, an irresistible need to share her discoveries with people. She is one of those artists who created a unique world of their own images, the world of beauty, artfully expressed the feelings that live in the people, in his folklore and thoughts.

Childhood of the artist

Bolotnia - the native village of Maria Priymachenko - is located 80 km from Kiev. It was here in January 1909 that the artist was born. Her father was a carpenter, and also practiced carving. And her mother was a famous needlewoman of embroidery: her whole family wore embroidered shirts of her production. Maria's grandmother, too, was engaged in creative activity - she painted pysanka.

The first creative abilities in Mary were manifested in her early childhood: she was fond of drawing flowers on the sand. And then she began to paint the houses with blue patterns. On the walls of the houses glowed birds and blossomed fantastic flowers. The villagers liked these drawings, which looked so beautiful on the walls and ovens.

After a time the future artist began to receive the first orders: the neighbors asked to decorate their houses with the same amazing patterns. Even the inhabitants of neighboring villages came to admire her creativity.

World outlook and positive perception of life by the artist

Biography of Maria Primachenko was not without difficult moments in life. In her childhood, the painter suffered from a terrible disease - poliomyelitis, which imposed a negative reflection on the fate of the master. Maria spent her entire life on crutches. This fact influenced the artist's picturesque manner. Unbearable physical pain combined with an unrestrained creative imagination and a desire for life poured into bizarre images. Now this is called art therapy. Confrontation of joy and pain, good and evil, darkness and light are observed in every canvas of Maria Priimachenko.

The artist had a rather strict nature, but she was friendly towards people. Sometimes Priymachenko gave the guests pictures of her house. For Mary, there were two worlds. In the first lived everything, and the second, the inner one, belonged only to her.

Her world was filled with various fantastic creatures, wonderful birds sang here, the fish learned to fly, the rainbow cows grazed on the meadow with the eyes of a man, and the kind brave lion was the defender of the enemies.

The beginning of the work of Maria Primachenko

The artist has become famous since 1936, when her first works "Beasts from the Swamps" were exhibited for the first time in Kiev at the All-Ukrainian Exhibition of Folk Art. Mary was awarded a diploma of the I degree. Here she began to take a great interest in ceramics and continued to engage in embroidery and drawing. In particular, she wrote a number of remarkable paintings: "The Bull on a Walk", "The Blue Lion", "The Pig Beast", "The Beast in Red Boots" 1936-1937, "Donkey", "Baran", "Red Berries", " Monkeys dance "," Two Parrots "and others (1937-1940).

The images of these works amaze with their fairy-tale, magic and fantastic. They are based on folklore legends, stories from life and folk tales. In her works, reality and fantasy were intertwined. Animals, flowers and trees are endowed with the ability to talk, they struggle for good and resist evil - everything, as in a fairy tale.

Birds also have fantastic properties: they have fancy shapes, intricate shapes that resemble a flower, and the wings are decorated with embroidery. All the beasts and birds of Mary are sunny, colorful, pleasing to the eye with their positive attitude ("The elephant wanted to be a sailor", "The young bear walks through the forest and does not do evil to people").

Creativity in the War and Postwar Periods

During the war Maria Primachenko interrupts her creative studies and returns to her native village. Here she survived the terrible years of her life. The war took her husband from him, who could not see his son. In the post-war period, the artist constantly lives in Bolotne, turning her parents' house into a workshop. 1950 is the year of the embroidered panel "Pava in Grapes" on a blue background, on a brown "Two Apple-trees", as well as murals: "Two hoopoes in flowers", "Ukrainian Flowers". In 1953-1959, Maria Priimachenko's drawings "Cat in Boots", "Peacock", "Crane and Fox", "Shepherds" became famous. These works testify to the perfection of Primakov's manner.

Creativity 70-80-ies

A special flowering of her work is at the beginning of the 70s. If before the artist portrayed real animals, then in the 70-80's. In her works there are fantastic beasts, which in reality do not exist. This is the four-headed ancient marsh beast, and marsh cancer, and Khorun, and prus, and wild gorbotrus, and wild volley. The name of the wild chaplun was motivated by the word "chapati". An emphasis is placed on the paws of the beast, which can be torn through alder thickets. There are animals violet, black, blue; Sad, cheerful, smiling, surprised. There are animals with human faces. Angry beasts are allegories. So, the purple beast in the "bourgeois" cap, painted with stylized bombs, grinned maliciously, showing sharp teeth and a long predatory tongue ("Damn the war, bombs instead of flowers", 1984).

Features of style

The artist's works are a combination of all possible artistic styles of the twentieth century: impressionism, neoromanticism, expressionism. One of the favorite topics of Maria Priimachenko, to which she often addressed, is cosmic. She loved the starry sky and inhabited it with her winged creatures - a hunchback, mermaids, birds. Even on the moon she planted vegetable gardens, cherishing her magic dreams. Her wonderful world was magical and unique, unique and radiant, sincere and kind, like herself.

Creativity of a folk artist teaches people to notice beauty in everything. She wanted to show each person individually how important it is to remain children even in old age, to keep the ability to be surprised and see a vivid interest in everything that happens around. The works of Maria Priimachenko really return us during childhood. There is nothing superfluous on them, we see only the irresistible fantasy of a woman with an amazing soul, with folk energy displayed in the pictures.

When Maria was asked about why she painted non-existent animals and flowers, she replied: "Why draw as they are, they are so beautiful, and I paint my own for the joy of people. I want so many people to watch the drawings and that everyone likes it. "

The genius of the artist

The world of art opened the amazing creativity of Maria Primachenko at least twice. The first time the artist gained popularity in 1935 as part of a campaign to find talent among the people. Then the works of the rural masters attracted the attention of the capital needlewoman Tatyana Flora, who collected masterpieces of folk art for the exhibition. As a result, the artist successfully works in Kiev experimental workshops. The talent of the artist contributed to the fact that she mastered the skills of modeling and painting products from clay.

The artist's works quickly began to gain popularity abroad. With the amazing beasts visitors of Moscow, Prague, Montreal, Warsaw and other European exhibitions could get acquainted. Art connoisseurs were shown drawings by Maria Priymachenko "Two Parrots", "Black Beast", "Dog in a Cap", "The Beast in Red Boots", "The Ox for a Walk", "Red Berries".

The world exhibition of Maria Priimachenko, which took place in Paris, brought great glory to the Ukrainian artist, for which she was awarded a gold medal. It was in the French capital with the works of the artist first met by venerable colleagues, such as Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall. They appreciated her work and even started using similar motives for their works.

The second time the talent of the national artist was opened in the 60s. This contributed to the famous art critic and playwright Grigory Mestechkin, as well as journalist Yuri Rost. An article about the work of Maria Primachenko, which was published by a journalist in the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, again made her popular.

Death of the artist

At the 89th year of life, an outstanding artist died. But, fortunately, the genus of Priimachenko artists continued. Her best pupil was a son - Fyodor, now an honored artist of Ukraine. Send her the way and grandchildren - Peter and John. Today they are young, talented artists, each bright individuality. Growing up next to such masters as their grandmother and father, they took all the best.

Perpetuation of the memory of Maria Primachenko

The name of the national master craftsman was named the small planet 14624 Primachenko. This name was offered by Klim Churyumov. In honor of the famous artist was released in 2008 commemorative coin. A year later in Kiev, the boulevard Likhachev was renamed into the boulevard Maria Priymachenko. In the cities of Brovary, Sumy and Kramatorsk there are streets named after Maria Primachenko.