Lydia Bodnar-Balahutrak, “Turning Toward the Light”
by Donna Tennant
Hooks-Epstein Galleries, Houston, Texas
Exhibition continues through February 15, 2025
January 25, 2025
Lydia Bodnar-Balahutrak, “What the Sunflowers Know,” 2024, oil, resins, print media collage on distressed canvas, 52 x 48”.
All images courtesy of the artist.
Lydia Bodnar-Balahutrak’s new work explores ongoing themes of humanity/inhumanity and death/rebirth through the lens of her Ukrainian heritage. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine three years ago interrupted her much-anticipated year-long sojourn there as a Fulbright scholar. Instead, she went to Poland, where she interviewed Ukrainian refugees, most of whom are women and children.
The daughter of Ukrainian World War II refugees, Bodnar-Balahutrak grew up immersed in that country’s culture. A trip there in 1991 and another in 1993 reawakened connection to her parents’ homeland, and she returned angry and sorrowful. “From that point on” she has written, “life changed for me in fundamental ways. Working through notions of cultural identity — from a personal frame of reference — has been the driving force in my work.”
Lydia Bodnar-Balahutrak, “Eyes in the Sky, 2024, oil on print media collage on paper, 16 x 16”.
The ongoing war has only deepened Bodnar-Balahutrak’s passion, and her pain is evident in “Turning Toward the Light.” The surfaces in multimedia pieces like “Two Sunflowers” and “Poppies” are heavily textured, the result of building them up over weeks with a mixture of oil paint, resin, seeds, ashes, and dried plants. Her process involves reworking the surface by scraping, carving, sanding, and even torching them. She refers to them as “wounded,” likening them to the scorched landscape of Ukraine.
Many of the paintings depict sunflowers, and Bodnar-Balahutrak has incorporated dried sunflowers and seeds into them. Sunflowers turn their heads toward the light, and wherever their seeds fall, they take root and grow. Sunflowers are treasured by Ukrainians for their strength and beauty, as well as for their ability to create protective barriers and provide sustenance. For the artist, they symbolize the search for truth and enlightenment in her identity. “Two Sunflowers” contains ground-up seeds mixed with the ashes of burned Soviet-era documents, along with dried plants, resins, and paint on distressed wood. According to Bodnar-Balahutrak, the materials she uses reflect Ukraine’s diversity. Some of the paintings are weathered through exposure to the elements, the artist leaving them outside for days at a time. Images in the show include doves, a nightingale, and a soldier’s dog.
Lydia Bodnar-Balahutrak, “Choker,” 2021, oil, wax, resins, print media collage on canvas, 96 x 76”.
The centerpiece of the exhibition is the nine-foot-tall “Choker,” (2021) a re-interpretation of the well-known golden pectoral discovered in a Scythian burial mound in 1971. The nomadic Scythians, who roamed central and southern Ukraine more than 2,000 years ago, were known for their bravery and superior horsemanship. Like the original artifact, Bodnar-Balahutrak’s painting depicts horses, cattle, scenes of daily life, and Scythian mythology. Unlike the gold pectoral, however, the background is composed of collaged news accounts of Ukraine’s struggle with Russian oppression, subtle images of Vladimir Putin, and the words of Ukraine’s national poet Taras Shevchenko calling for the country to keep fighting for freedom, truth, and justice.
Lydia Bodnar-Balahutrak, “A Fanciful Curtain for Children at Play,” 2024, ink, chalk, charcoal, print media collage on paper, 22 20”.
Since the pandemic, Bodnar-Balahutrak has been using print-media news articles as a foundation, collaging them onto heavy paper or canvas. She then adds layers of paper, paint, charcoal, and pastel to imbue the works with multiple levels of meaning. Although the sunflowers have often appeared in her work, she now brings them to the forefront as a metaphor for “the lights that beckon us to turn away from fear and shadow and face the light.”
Bodnar-Balahutrak finds personal catharsis as well as political and cultural force working with Ukrainian imagery and subject matter. In the drawing “A Fanciful Curtain for Children at Play,” she depicts a Ukrainian lace window curtain as the background for a silhouetted squirrel on a branch. The words “For Children of War: A Time to Play” appear on the piece, a reference to children who have been orphaned, displaced, or injured. “Devoted” is a scarred and torched image of a soldier’s dog, another innocent victim of war.
Lydia Bodnar-Balahutrak, “Devoted,” 2024, seeds, ashes, oil, resins on torched wood panel, 12 x 12”.
Bodner-Balahutrak explores cultural, social, and political issues, filtering them through her particular frame of reference. Many of the paintings reflect a visceral response to Russia’s destruction of Ukraine’s rich culture. According to the artist, “This exhibition is a tribute to Ukraine’s courageous fight for freedom. Each artwork is meant to elicit a turning toward the light, away from darkness, to evoke pathos, express wonder, and perpetuate a discourse about one’s place in the world.” As Bodnar-Balahutrak continues to investigate national and international events and politics as they relate to her personal identity, her work becomes increasingly poignant and elegiac.