Art exhibition

«PER ASPERA AD ASTRA»
At the exhibition of modern icons.
The exposition consists of modern icons created by the painters of the family icon-painting studio “The Heaven of the Earth” run by the Sergiy Pavelko from Mikolaiv.
The studio was organized in 2004 in Mikolaiv, the city where the church    and icon-painting traditions, hadn’t been kept and were to be restored. Soon the studio became a kind of a special icon-painting school where the painters from Mikolaiv with the help of various technique paint the icons with various spiritual messages. Father Sergiy Pavelko thinks that icon painting is not only mastering of the skill but also a spiritual deed. That’s why only fen can become real icon-painters. From many students who came to the studio only some young women stayed to work there ate 7 painters in the studio now and each of them is special: Sergiy Pavelko, Ksenia Glebova, Natalia Soboleva, Olga Nesterova, Konstantin Samoilenko, Olena Glebova, Maria Pavelko. Young painters ate becoming popular in Ukraine and abroad. Trough icons are not singed by the authors one can easily recording the hand of the icon painter by the style or special spirituality of the icon. It has become of great interest to Europeans. The of icon-painters from the studio found admirers in Switzerland, Germany, France and Japan.
The painters in the studio “The Heaven of the Earth” work according to ancient technologies. They use only natural materials: lime-tree and cherry-tree boards; “pavoloka” – canvas, glued to the boards; “levkas” – 4-15 layers of a special ground made from chalk and animal glue. The paints are also hand-made from natural minerals and pigments mixed with egg-emulsion (yolks and the
Holy water of the twelfth day Epiphany). Traditional technologies in icon-painting are expensive and lab our consuming. For example, Brazilian crystal, African malachite, ar Ukrainian rare minerals kerchenit and black tourmaline are used to make paints. You can also see many kinds of gilding and silvery on the icons. Even the hooks to fasten the icons are hand made.
The icon painters from Mikolaiv try to draw the visitors attention by the original design of the exhibition hall. Instead of the usual bright light you’ll see the dusky room and find the lanterns to light up the exhibits. The Dusk symbolized material mortal world. People with inner spiritual sight are supposed to see what unites their souls with the light of the Heaven and God.
The conceptual centre of the exhibition is the icon-tondo (circle) “Christ – Angel of Great Council”. Christ with the wings in the circle of light is ready to embrace you. The light’ in the icon-painters language stands for God’s light we must help Him to meet us , which is impossible efforts. The beam of Light is a movement to eternity, immortality.
The triptych “The Noble Robber” is a symbolic work which combines canonic and modern perception of the Holy Writing. The central icon of the triptych presents the crucified Robber and the Holly Trinity above him. According to apocrypha the Robber was the first person to come to the Paradise. His character is an embodiment of the difficult way of a Christian to eternity with sins and repentance. The man who is stabbing the sword in the Robert’s body is the symbol of the temptations of the modern world. On the side parts of the icon there are the Robert’s words of repentance and Christ’s words of accepting the repentance. They symbolize   Christ’s dialogue with Man. There is a symbol of a person’s voluntary choice: golden circle stands for the life with God, dark – without Him.
The icon Our Lady “The Curativeness” presents the spiritual search of the painters in the studio   “The Heaven of the Earth”. On finding the information about the icon used to be known in Georgia in the 4 c. they reconstructed the lost image with the help of literary description of it. Before Our Lady there are doctors famous in the church history: Pantheleimon, Agapit Pecherskiy, our contemporary St. Luca Voino-Yasenetskiy.

Today the icon-painters see their task in making people understand the true meaning of the icon. The head of the studio father Sergiy Pavelko thinks that the icon nowadays is taken rather as an occult decorative item of the interior or a fetish which is not a spiritual issue. To feel what is the icon destined for we must do great spiritual work – turn to God. Father Sergiy says “The icon is sometimes thought to have nothing new. And to repeat the canons. In fact the canon doesn’t limit you but inspires to new search and new accomplishment in the name of God ”

Art exhibition

Our works