Leading Masters
Anna Zhoss
The traditions of Tavrian painting continue to be kept and developed thanks to young, gifted artists who have been interested in it from childhood. Among them is Anna Zhoss — a talented young woman who learned the secrets of the folk painting not from books, but heard them directly from her grandmother, a mazalnytsia, who knew Yevhenia Bondarenko and even became the principal figure of one of the artist’s pictures, Grandma Aniuta, a Cossack Granddaughter.
Anna was born on 13 March 2003 on the Kinburn Spit. Raised among strong, energetic working people, on legends of Nicholas the fisherman-saint, of Larych, of the blue crane, she took in the colours of the local views, the transparency of the air, the movement of waves in the lyman — which she now eagerly recreates in her works.
Triptych Guardian Angel of the Mykolaiv Region
At the age of ten the girl moved with her family to the village of Kutsurub in Ochakiv district of the Mykolaiv Region. On her creative path she met a wise and fine mentor, truly in love with Tavrian painting — Liubov Paraniuk, who taught fine and decorative-applied art in the art department of the Kutsurub School of Arts. It was she who played an important part in the pupil’s creative forming, helped develop artistic skills, supported the wish to experiment and to seek an approach of her own, and deepened her interest in Tavrian painting. “Gradually, stroke by stroke,” Anna recalls, “I learned to use the basic elements, to gather them into whole compositions, to work with form. My first works were small magnets in the shape of various animals and a decorative plate.”
Later the skills grew finer. In 2019, together with her teacher, Anna Zhoss presented Tavrian painting as an object of intangible cultural heritage of the Kutsurub community at the review-competition of the Mykolaiv Regional Centre of Folk Art “Ethno-Traditions of the Mykolaiv Region.” The commission was struck by the work and approved the decision to accept it into the regional list of ICH. In the same year the young artist showed an author’s work in the technique of Tavrian painting at the regional festival “Art-mix-2019” in Mykolaiv. The triptych Guardian Angel of the Mykolaiv Region received the Grand Prix and also a special prize of the jury.
Participation in the regional festival “Art-mix-2019”
Zhoss Anna and Paraniuk Liubov
After finishing her studies at the school of arts in 2020, she entered the Mykolaiv branch of the Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts, where she received an education in graphic design. During her studies the young artist continued to work with Tavrian painting in her own creative and student projects: she stylised its elements, experimented with form and colour, and looked for ways to join traditional painting with contemporary design solutions.
From 2024 Anna began to cooperate with the Workshop of Tavrian Painting, where she continued her professional refinement under the mentorship of Liubov Paraniuk. She took part in the creation of souvenirs, which she later presented at cultural events and fairs of many kinds. In parallel she gave Tavrian painting a new life in a virtual environment: she carried elements made by her own hand into digital space, stylised and worked them through, and on their basis created vector graphics.
“Tavrian painting for me is a part of my creative path, bound to the place where I grew up, to the people who taught me, and to the culture of my native land,” Anna Zhoss underlines. “What was interesting and important for me was not only the revival of the painting, but the search for possibilities of carrying its images and principles into a contemporary visual environment — digital graphics, design, souvenirs and decorative objects.”
A synthesis of traditional folk art with digital technologies answers the needs of contemporary society. Anna Zhoss proves this, transforming authentic ornaments into an instrument for creating merch, souvenirs and elements of design. A new format of Tavrian painting is one of the paths toward its keeping, its recognisability and its development.
At present the master continues to cooperate with the Workshop of Tavrian Painting and with the brand Vilna lastovka, for which she paints jewellery of epoxy resin in an ethno style.
