Borodani

For more than half a year I worked on a series of works about bearded men. I met them everywhere. Even three days before the opening, the saxophonist Bohdan came to see me. He had an extraordinarily fine beard and curled moustaches.

My heroes are a priest; the rock musician Kostiantyn Dobrotskyi; the jazz musicians Serhii Krasheninnikov and Mykola Yevpak; the sculptors Mykola Dzytsyna and Oleksandr Duvinskyi; the artist Matvii Vaisberg; Anatolii Yalovenko, a doctor working in Africa; Dmytro Yarosh, leader of the Right Sector; the Maidan men Havryliuk, Ataman Hora and Serhii Nihoian; Yaroslav, a musician from Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi; the musician Oleh Mihal; my godfather Viktor Dvorub; my brother, the designer Oleksii; my husband Serhii; the biker Ashot Salvador; the art director Anton Malov; the restaurateur Serhii Dedovskyi; the film director Serhii Proskurnia; and the tea master Dmytro Maslov.

They are all different, but a beard unites them. I asked each of them: “What is a beard to you?”

The answers are inseparable from the works. That was what interested me.

A bonus of the exhibition was a photo project by the art director of “Anton’s studio” in Kyiv. Thank you, Anton, for the support and for coming to the opening.

I am very grateful to my partners, who are my friends: Marianna of Design Mara, the design atelier Article, the food blogger Olena Olshevska, Serhii Dedovskyi of the sushi bar Tako, Oleksandr Semenukha of the cocktail club Bombay, Dmytro Maslov, and Iryna Skichko, the exhibition’s curator from the Cherkasy art museum.

Photographs from the after party at the Bombay cocktail club: Serhii Polishchuk

Photographs were given to us by Olha Stepanian and Oleksii Severin (Kvadrat photo studio) and by Oleksandr Mynaiev

Thank you to the advertising and printing centre Tochka SBORKY for its support — and to Oleksandr and Olenka personally.

Photos from opening