Leading Masters
Aleksandra Udovytska
Aleksandra Udovytska was born in the city of Belgorod. Almost the whole of her life and professional path have been spent in Mykolaiv. She finished the Mykolaiv Children’s Art School, then the Mykolaiv State Higher College of Culture in the speciality “Fine and Decorative-Applied Art.” She received her higher education in 2007 at the Mykolaiv branch of the Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts in the speciality “Fine and Decorative-Applied Art.” By qualification she is an artist, master and teacher of decorative-applied art.
After her studies she worked as a teacher of the fine-art class at Children’s School of Arts No. 3 and gave private drawing lessons to children from the age of three. She did not leave her own creative work: she made handmade jewellery, mastered new techniques, created author’s decorative panels and compositions, painted clothing and gave masterclasses in Petrykivka painting.
In 2023 the gifted artist took part in the regional historical, cultural and artistic project Lights of the South. People-Lighthouses and met its author — the cultural figure and manager of the Public Organisation “Adult Learning and Education Center ‘South’,” Ruslana Sikalenko. At the large-scale exhibition she showed several pictures of lighthouses of the Dnipro-Buh Lyman in an author’s interpretation. The theme of lighthouses so absorbed her that in April 2024 the Mykolaiv Museum of Shipbuilding and Fleet invited visitors to the opening of Aleksandra Udovytska’s first solo exhibition, Flower-Crowned Lighthouses.
Souvenir products by the master Udovytska Aleksandra
She became acquainted with Tavrian painting in 2022 thanks to a masterclass by Liubov Paraniuk. It enchanted her, proved close and went to her heart. She continued to master Tavrian ornaments on her own, forming a style of her own. “I love our land: the boundless and fragrant steppes in spring, the concordance of hot dry winds and the salt breath of the lymans, and beloved Kinburn — a unique corner of stunning views, where flowering reserve fields speak with sandy shores, salt lakes and the open sea. Tavrian painting embodies all of this, and so it answers in my feelings and impressions,” Aleksandra Udovytska notes.
Her first independent work — a ceramic plate adorned with Tavrian motifs — was the beginning of her activity in this kind of decorative and applied art. The gradual refinement of drawing skills made it possible to create more complex and emotional compositions not only on paper, but on wood, glass and cloth. And after completing the courses “Pottery Studio” and “Foundations of Tavrian Painting…” under the guidance of Liubov Paraniuk, the joining of ceramics with the local painting made it possible to embody more complex intentions: from form to decoration.
The artist’s works are very lyrical, refined, festive. At the same time a fierce dynamism and force are felt in them. This is achieved through a circular composition, the energetic beat of birds’ wings, the movement of sailing boats that draw the glance as if in a whirl. Her works radiate light and are an example of a successful contemporary understanding of authentic painting.
Udovytska Aleksandra with her graduation work Where the Sky Kisses the Sea, 2026
The River Huntress, 2026
A Flowering Fate, 2026
Immersion, 2026
Her favourite motif in Tavrian painting is a stylised image of a lighthouse, for it is the principal symbol of hope, of unshakable steadfastness and of an inner light that scatters darkness, fear and chaos. Aleksandra Udovytska likes to paint steppe flowers and birds. Especially the crane, which in folk ornamental meaning marks the eternal cycle of life and fidelity to the Homeland.
From 2024 to the present the artist has taken an active part in exhibitions jointly held by PO “ALEC ‘South’” and the Cultural and Artistic Association “Art-Temptation,” in fairs and festivals of Tavrian painting; she continues to experiment and to develop actively. Aleksandra Udovytska is convinced that Tavrian painting has a great cultural potential, which will soon have spaces of its own: museums, galleries, schools.
The artist’s creative credo is to keep and to revive, to join the ancient with contemporary life. Through her works she speaks to viewers: “Look, feel, study and love this wonder-land — in the colours of the painting of Tavria, read its history.”
