NEW YORK, NY.- Art at the Institute announced the start to its 2018-19 season with High Textile, an exhibition of contemporary decorative and wearable fabric art by Kyiv-based Ukrainian artist Anastasiia Podervianska. The exhibition opened on Thursday, October 4 and remains on view to Sunday, November 11. Curated by Walter Hoydysh, PhD, director of Art at the Institute, this exhibition marks Ms. Podervianska’s first showing in New York.

Redefining the history of art subjects and themes, Podervianska uses the medium of textile to subvert its cultural aura as “woman’s work” and transforms it into colorful, ironic, lively, and, if not, liberating objects of visual effect. Influenced by postmodernist ideas, the two groups of 
works on display — Country Horrors and Coat Portraits— are the products of spirited experimentation with materials and exacting technique while at the same time confronting important cultural issues such as folkloric legend, biblical and Eastern iconography, historical characterization, national and personal identity, popular culture, and socially predetermined roles.

Inspired by Yuriy Bulashev’s book, Ukrainian People in Their Legends, Religious Views and Beliefs (1909), the selected wall pieces identified with Country Horrors illustrate the author’s narrative legends. Utilizing hand-stitching, Podervianska assembles ethnic embroidery, fabric prints, patches, and texts to 
pay homage to past historical conventions with contemporary incisive irony and sharp-witted humor. Conversely, Coat Portraits display embroidered copies of renown cultural luminaries on wearable coats designed and sewn by couturier, Lilia Bratus. Having previously created costumes for her father’s (poet and playright Les Poderviansky) absurd theatrical performances, Ms. Podervianska seeks to turn clothing into restless art.

Noted art historian Olesia Avrymemko, of the Modern Art Research Institute (Ukrainian Academy of Arts, Kyiv) says of Podervianska’ art, “Like caverns of mysterious caves, her works are as deep as each viewer-explorer is ready to go. The bolder the explorer, the bigger the prize: courageous viewers who dare to follow secret passages are suddenly led out of the caves of the subconscious out into the open, onto mountain peaks that allow conscious reflection of the path behind them.”

Anastasiia Podervianska is a graduate of the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture (department of monumental painting), in Kyiv, Ukraine. She has participated in group and solo exhibitions in Ukraine with Dymchuk Gallery, Mystetskyi Arsenal, Tryptych Gallery, and White World Gallery, among other contemporary venues. Her textile works were featured by Voloshyn Gallery at the 2017 running of the SCOPE Miami Beach art fair and the 2018 edition of Vienna Contemporary. She is represented in private and public collections in Ukraine, Germany, Poland, and the United States. Ms. Podervianska lives and works in Kyiv.