Dymchuk Gallery presents Galyna Andrusenko’s solo project “Protected” in partnership with MYPH, a school of conceptual and art photography. The exhibition features graphics, painting, photography, video, installation, and documentation of the artist’s performative practices.
In the “Protected” series, Galyna Andrusenko captures how full-scale war is transforming urban space and the way memory is preserved within it. Sculptures, covered with protective structures and materials to shield them from shelling, form a new visual landscape in Ukrainian cities. Losing their familiar appearance, they transform into temporary abstract objects that arose not as a result of an artistic gesture, but as a societal reaction to the war and an attempt to preserve cultural memory.
The exhibition features works depicting wrapped monuments and memorials located in various cities across Ukraine, primarily in Kyiv. Among them are monuments to Volodymyr the Great, Petro Sahaidachny, Hryhorii Skovoroda, Mykola Lysenko, and other objects that the artist selects not only for their recognizability in the urban environment but also for their symbolic presence in the collective memory.
The image of the “Mother Motherland” monument occupies a special place in the project. In Andrusenko’s works, it appears to be wrapped in fabric—even though in reality the monument has never been covered with protective materials. The wrapping functions as a double gesture: an act of protection and care, but at the same time concealment and distancing. This imaginary intervention allows the artist to work with the very image of the monument as a controversial symbol around which public debates continue. The symbolism of the shield is concealed by the fabric, rendering it secondary; yet the silhouette itself remains recognizable, indicating that ideology is embedded not only in the emblems but also in the very form of the monument.
Alongside the graphic series, the exhibition features photographs, videos, and documentation from the performance cycle “Protected,” in which the artist transfers the gesture of wrapping from the urban space to the personal one. In these works, the objects of “protection” become loved ones, household items, and the space of private memory. The “Unprotected” series, created at a cemetery in the Mykolaiv region of Ukraine, continues this exploration through the image of grave crosses wrapped in fabric—a gesture no longer capable of preventing loss, but one that captures a state of powerlessness in the face of it.
Works from these series have been exhibited in various European countries, and the exhibition “Protected” is the first large-scale presentation of the artist’s works in Kyiv as part of her solo project.
About the Artist
Galyna Andrusenko was born in 1992 in the Mykolaiv region. In 2018, she graduated from the monumental painting studio at the National Academy of Visual Arts and Architecture. In 2021–2022, she studied contemporary art at the Kyiv Academy of Media Arts (KAMA).
She works with themes of protection, memory, and home in the context of war and human vulnerability. The primary media in her work are painting and drawing, though she occasionally turns to photography, video, and performance.
She lives and works in Kyiv.