Vlada Ralko "Kyiv Diary"

The works of Vlada Ralko are distinguished by aggressive colors and an expressive manner of painting with somewhat frightening forms, sometimes causing rejection in the viewer. But most often this rejection is not caused by the "terrible picture" seen, but by the viewer’s own internal sensations, which are hidden deep in the subconscious and are not verbalized. Vlada's work comes into emotional resonance, exposing them with uncompromising frankness. The strength and energy of her works, their sensuality combined with accentuated physiology, a large amount of red color and almost physical presence of pain, creates simultaneously a feeling of discomfort and peculiar attractiveness.

By example of Vlada's art and its perception by the viewer one clearly sees how the artist transforms deeply personal into universal, which the viewer then continues, carrying out the reverse process of "recognizing", extracting from the universal image purely personal, actual meanings and feelings, individual for each person.

The value of Ralko's work lies in the multilevel structure of image building. Created on the principle of stratification of meanings, they do not require literal interpretation. Being by definition uncomfortable, acting as an irritant and a kind of mirror, her works induce the viewer to dialogue, emotional interaction and in a certain sense test them for the ability to be frank with themselves. Working with the concept of corporeality, Vlada confronts a person with reality - personal or social.

Within a few months of the fateful winter of 2013-2014, the artist painted a diary where she documented the events of EuroMaidan, which became a rupture in the old picture of reality, a tectonic shift in the minds and souls of individuals and in society as a whole. The Kyiv Diary, created with the ballpoint pen and watercolors, consists of emotional plots that depict the everyday barricade life, the tragedy of heroic deaths and contain profound philosophical overtones and culturological allusions. The format of the diary - a quick genre - allowed the artist ability to record what was happening on the go, to be eyewitness of events, acting as one of the custodians of the memory of an important historical moment and its immediate emotional perception. The artist has defined for herself drawing the diary as part of the civic duty, considering that events of such importance and morbidity can not be lost, missed, forgotten. In addition to documentary sketches filled with personal emotional content, in this series Ralko is repeatedly alluding to ethno-national and folklore motifs and images: "motanka doll", Cossack Mamay. Retrieval of these deep images to the surface is connected with actualization of the question of one’s roots, sources, which help to find one’s identity, at the crucial moment for the people.