Hi, Andrew Levitsky, what`s your routine at the moment?

Great Poet Issa Kobayasa, 小林一茶 also known as Yataro said: „Our life is a dewdrop. Let only a drop of dew Our life — and yet…“

My country Ukraine is subjected to brazen attacks and occupation of its territories by its nearest neighbor. A terrible fierce war is going. Today is January 20 and it is already the 996th day of the full-scale russian invasion of Ukraine, or almost 9 years, since the beginning of the russian occupation of Crimea and Sevastopol.

The war came to my Kyiv with sirens and russian missile attacks. Everything has changed in my life. Everything. We live now for one day. The war clearly showed real values: life, truth, light and divided the world into white and black, life before and after.

I’m Andrew Levitsky, a Graphic Artist and Printmaker, continue to do what I can, know and love. I always work in black and white art. And now it keeps me going on. Life goes on. I use Intaglio technique – modern Intaglio which includes different ways of work with metal: both Etching, Embossing, Engraving, Lavis, Aquatint, Dry point and Mezzotint. A combination of different manners, union of graphical embossing and picturesque intaglio allows the artist to create complicated, wide in range, intense in expression. The possibility to draw freely with a needle on a metal board preserves a straightforward manner of art’s creation and imprints artist’s individual mode and temperament. Surface is natural for Intaglio. Due to this, imprint obtains deepness and lightness. A fundamental stroke is short or long, straight or creatively stretched, condensing or crossing; it is able to communicate different shades of the mood as well as the landscape’s condition, its multidimensionality, spaciousness and airiness. I hold principally on to the laws of the classical Intaglio printing technique.

My teachers are The Great Artists Rembrandt, Durer and Taras Shevchenko.

What`s now particularly important for all of us?

Only Peace and Love will save our World!

Although today it has to be said in a different way. It is necessary to save those who create art, literature, theater, cinema, from the cursed war, destruction and hopelessness.

It is artists, poets, musicians who are the most vulnerable during a war or an arms race in the world. This is understood by the peoples who survived the genocide of destruction and occupation. I understand it especially acutely now, hearing air sirens in Kyiv and receiving news about shelling and russian missiles hit civilian objects every day in Ukraine.

The old saying goes:

«God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.‘‘ Attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971)

New start, new beginning. What will be essential and which roles will art play on society?

I hope and try to answer to this philosophical question in all my Printmaking Art works. You can talk a lot, but do nothing good, just talk. I prefer to work. As for me it is interesting not just blindly copy life or events, artist has to be as a guide, who passes this life through himself and gives out his emotions, feelings, inspiration and effort in his works.

A good artist should be able to start with a blank sheet, this is like the philosophy of starting a work. In my opinion, good art should be tested by time.

Art, where there is a soul, has always played an important role in society,

Art is a component of the Culture and reflects a soul of the nation.

What are you reading currently? 

I am reading a lot books now, both modern world and Ukrainian literature, and classic literature, for example, Federico García Lorca, Spain, Patricia Highsmith, USA, Lina Kostenko, Ukraine, Willa Cather, USA, Molier and Jean La Fontaine, France. 

For me, the genius of Jean La Fontaine (Jean La Fontaine, 1621-1695) lies in the relevance of his works even today in the conditions of the two-year „covid-19″ lockdown.“ At the end of the 17th century, a famous French fabulist published the „Poem about the Henna Tree“. The poem is dedicated to this amazing plant (Quinquina Tree). He wrote that it was as if the sun-faced Phoebus himself (Apollo, the god of light, hence his nickname Phoebus – „radiant“, „shining“) sent people a cure for the mortally dangerous swamp fever, which was unleashed on the white light by the treacherous Pandora („gifted to all“ – the first woman).

Which quote, text will you propose to us?

Lina Vasylivna Kostenko, Words Terrify When They Remain Not Spoken. She was born in 19 March 1930. She is a Ukrainian poet, journalist, writer, publisher, and former Soviet dissident. Lina Kostenko has been granted numerous honours, including an honorary professorship at Kyiv Mohyla Academy, honorary doctorates of Lviv and Chernivtsi Universities, and the Shevchenko National Prize, and the Legion of Honour.

Lina Kostenko

WORDS TERRIFY WHEN THEY REMAIN NOT SPOKEN

Words terrify when they remain not spoken,

When suddenly, they tuck themselves away,

When you don’t known how silence can be broken,

For someone else has said all you might say.

These words were once pronounced in tears or pain,

They were the dawn yet also the cessation,

Billions of men, and words, like drops of rain,

For the first time now, they are your creation.

Both beauty and ill will have had their fame,

There have been weeds and roads beneath our sole,

But poetry will never be the same,

It will forever touch the human soul.

Andrew Levitsky, professional Artist & Printmaker, Master of Arts.

Kyiv, Ukraine_21 January_2024

Thank you very much for the interview and your great art, dear Andrew all the best for you in these days!

5 questions on artists: Andrew Levitsky, professional Artist & Printmaker, Master of Arts

Andrew Levitsky

Professional Artist & Printmaker, Master of Arts, Kyiv, Ukraine.

Born: 1961 Kyiv, Ukraine.

Study: 1986-1992 National Ukrainian Academy of Fine Art, Studio of Graphic Arts.

Study: 1993-1996 National Ukrainian Academy of Fine Art,

Post Graduate Course: Studio of Graphic Arts with Academician G. Yakutovich,

Studio of Graphic Arts with Academician M. Deregus.

From 1996 he becoming a Master in Graphic Arts.

Specializing in Graphic Arts: Intaglio, Etching, Colour Print, Mono-print, Mezzotint, Watercolor, Mini-prints and Ex-libris / Bookplate /.

From 1992 – Member of National Artists Union of Ukraine.

Member Graphic Guild of Kyiv Artists Union. Numerous Exhibitions in Ukraine and Abroad since 1987. Since his student days he has actively participated in prestigious international competitions in different fields of graphic arts.

Andrew Levitsky is the winner of the 25 international awards and two international grants to solo show in Japan, 1992, 1995-1996

for his best works in the field of Intaglio Printmaking Arts.

Numerous Publication Personal Catalogues and Booklets of Graphic Art,

design by Andrew Levitsky, since 1998.

Lives and work in Kyiv, Ukraine

Contact to Andrew Levitsky

https://www.facebook.com/andrew.leviysky.1

laart@i.ua

levitskyadik@gmail.com

Fotos_ portrait/art Andrew Levitsky

Walter Pobaschnig _ 21.1.2024

https://literaturoutdoors.com