Process Wall: Liubov Romaniuk “The End and the Beginning” [7–16].1.25

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“The End and the Beginning”
by Liubov Romaniuk
Feb 8th-16th
Exhibition Opening Feb 7th 17:00 

Myymälä2 is pleased to present the exhibition “The End and the Beginning” (Кінець і початок) by Liubov Romaniuk (1999, Ukraine). The artist’s motivation and reflection come into play at a moment in time when according to her “Our world stands on the edge of collapse and almost everything we hold dear—nature, relationships, and life itself—hangs by a thread”.  She asks: “Why is this happening? How is possible that humanity has chosen selfishness over harmony? Humanity is taking from nature like there is no tomorrow, without giving back.  We are exploiting the planet’s natural resources instead of cherishing and protecting them. Wars are waged for power and profit, while indifference blinds us to the consequences of our actions.” 

In this exhibition, Romaniuk reimagines the world as a lost paradise. Her patterned and elaborated drawings made using pencils, watercolours and inks, represent a mythical and enchanted symbolism with intricate shapes and contours they pretend to be part of a bizarre universe. The internal life of those “eccentric still life” portrays beauty, fragility, and a sense of dormant landscapes, like all the life it once nurtured, has almost vanished. Somehow she also believes that after the end of our world, there will be another one. She is insistent with her questions…  “What will this new world look like? Will it hold traces of humanity? or will life take on entirely new life forms?  Will it be something unexpected and beautiful?” 

The artist’s desperate questions might echo the quote by Ursula K. Le Guin “The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next.” from The Left Hand of Darkness, where Genly Ai ― an outcast, forced to leave his beloved homeland; and Estraven fleeing from a different kind of persecution  ― What they have in common is curiosity, about others and themselves, and an almost unshakeable belief that the world can be a better place.

Romaniuk’s exhibition explores almost elegiacally the fragility of our present and the possibilities of the future shaped by our choices. It doesn’t seek to dictate how we should think but invites us to reflect and timely ask “Are we ready to lose this extraordinary world?” 

Artist bio
Liubov Romaniuk:  (1999, Bakhmut) Donetsk region. Ukraine.
Graduated from The Faculty of Painting. The Art University in Kharkiv. Recent  Exhibitions: Group exhibition Eye Sea Fallery, Kyiv (2024); Group exhibition, Khmelnytskyi region (Horaivka), Vinnytsia, Kyiv. (2024); “Trees”, Kharkiv (2024); Triennial of Drawings by Ukrainian and International Artists, Kyiv (2022–2023); International Digital Exhibition Artwork Gallery and Magazine, (2023) and “Kherson is Ukraine”, Uman, Kyiv. (2022) 

Liubov Romaniuk is an Artist at Risk (AR) Safe Haven Helsinki Resident, organised and curated by Perpetuum Mobile – PM ry (PM).  

https://artistsatrisk.org/

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