Paraska Plytka-Horytsvit
Untitled, year unknown, courtesy of the community of Kryvorivnia village
Untitled, year unknown, courtesy of the community of Kryvorivnia village
About the Works
Being a self-taught artist working with various mediums, Plytka-Horytsvit started to take photos in the 1970s, and her photographic oeuvre has around four thousand photographs. Usually, she photographed fellow villagers and their children, landscapes, holidays, nature, etc. The same models reappeared in the photographs at different stages of their lives, and special attention was often paid to the religious celebrations and festive activities that structured the life cycles of people in the Carpathian Mountains in the second half of the 20th century. Her photographic practice comes along with her enduring interest in history, ethnography, folklore, and customs of the region, which she carefully studied and recorded throughout her life.
Kateryna Filyuk
About the Artist
Paraska Plytka-Horytsvit (1927 – 1998) is a Hutsul artist, poetess, writer, folk philosopher, ethnographer and photographer. Representative of naive art. Born in the village of Bystrets in the family of blacksmith Stefan and embroiderer Anna. In 1945 she joined the national liberation movement and was arrested in the same year. For being an “enemy of the state” in the face of Soviet government, Paraska Plytka-Horytsvit more than 10 years in Stalin’s camps. After release, she returned to the village of Kryvorivnya. There Paraska Plytka-Horytsvit has been a self-appointed rural photographer for about 30 years. The creative legacy of Plytka-Horytsvit is incredibly diverse: poetry, hand-made books, paintings, vytynanky (art form of papercutting), icons and large photo archives.