'Ukraine is a country full of bright colours and love for life' - Ukrainian artist's exhibition to open in Cork

On Thursday evening, the Lord Mayor of Cork will launch an exhibition of artworks by a Ukrainian artist who has made her home here for the past year.

The Hideout Café on Cork’s Wellington Road is an immediately friendly and welcoming place, and its proprietor Agnes makes sure everyone who walks through the door is greeted like a family friend.

At the moment, the walls of the café are covered in some particularly striking artworks, the work of Ukrainian artist Oksana Lebedeva, an artist and a native of Kyiv, who left her home at the end of May last year.

At the back of the café, Oksana chats with The Echo, translated by her friend Julia, a Ukrainian who has lived in Ireland since 2017.

Some of Oksana’s artworks are very figurative, and her mountain scenes, coloured in cool shards of blues and greens and greys, are particularly arresting, while others are more abstract. When asked, she says she sees no contradiction in this.

“All of my life,” she says, “I have paid a lot of attention to nature, and when I came to Ireland I visited many exhibitions and I found that some Irish artists paint a lot more abstractly, and that for me abstraction is interesting, because it can be primitive and puts you thinking, and always looking for something new.” 

She says she has been made to feel very welcome in her new home in Ireland.

“First of all, I am so impressed by the treatment Irish people have given me, and kindness and a lot of attention, from the very first days I was walking in Cork and I stopped for a cup of coffee, and someone was sitting next to me, and they shook my hand and made me feel very welcome in Ireland.

“I love nature, and often I can hear that Irish people love nature too, but I really, really, love Irish climate.” 

She says that in Kyiv “In the summer, it is super-hot, and in the winter it is super-cold”, but she likes the generally mild, if almost perpetually wet, weather native to Ireland.

Some of Oksana artworks are paintings on canvas, while others are acrylic, and some are drawings. She says she only sells original artworks, feeling that prints would “not be honest [and would] not be from the heart”.

'LOVE FOR LIFE'

A former journalist, Oksana emails after our interview: “I would like to add a few words about the exhibition, more precisely, about one of the reasons for the exhibition.

“I would really like the people of Ireland to perceive Ukraine not as a country in which a war is now going on. 

"I wanted to show that Ukraine is a country full of bright colours and love for life.

She continues: “This is an exceptionally peaceful country, a country in which people are generous with their dosh, with an open heart.” 

When asked if by “dosh” she means money – it seems an unusual choice of word for a Ukrainian national, especially when it calls to mind Del Boy Trotter praising a particularly flaithiúlach punter down the Nag’s Head – she replies no, that the word has been lost in translation.

“It was about a generous soul,” she writes, “it’s not about money. This is about kindness, reliability, hospitality, readiness to always come to the rescue.” Those sound like good traits for any country to have, and good traits too to bring to a new country.

Oksana’s exhibition runs until September.

Oksana Lebedeva’s exhibition will be launched at 6.15pm on Thursday 20 July in the Hideout Café, by the Lord Mayor of Cork, Councillor Kieran McCarthy.