Women and Other Wild Creatures: Matrilineal Tales

Zinaida (Ukraine), Iryna Maksymova (Ukraine), Rita Maikova (Ukraine),
Kateryna Babkina (Ukraine), Aya Shalkar (Kazakhstan/US),Yerke Abuova (Kazakhstan/US),
Nicole Peyrafitte (France/US) and Susan Coyne (US).

Curated by Nina Levent, Ph.D.

June 3, 2022- July 15, 2022
Opening reception on June 3, 6-8pm

Featuring installation + Video Antediluvian Sympoiesis
pdf of installation: here

Sapar Contemporary is thrilled to present Women and Other Wild Creatures: Matrilineal Tales, a group exhibition of women artists who draw strength from the connection with the non-human nature, involving it in their healing practices and increasingly fantastical visions of human unity with nature. The show includes artists from Ukraine (Zinaida, Rita Maikova, Iryna Maksymova, poet Kateryna Babkina) and Kazakhstan (Aya Shalkar and Yerke Abuova), representing the gallery’s DNA, as well as works by French (Nicole Peyrafitte) and American (Susan Coyne) artist.

The inspiration for the exhibition came from seeing intergenerational caravans of grandmothers, mothers, daughters, and family pets migrating from the war zones, as well as the images of nature’s destruction in Ukraine: suffering trees, plants, animals of all kinds, and the whole steppe and wetland ecosystems – in addition to cultivated land. These images have been deeply felt at the gallery whose founders have family, friends, artists, and roots in Ukraine. The sense of terror brought to mind sources of strength available to women, connections that they forge across time and space, rituals recovered and re-invented in times of cataclysms. Ukrainian poet, Kateryna Babkina, contributed a poem she has written in March 2022, which was translated in English by Virlana Tkacz and Wanda Phipps for the exhibition. The poem opens with a line: Give me a brother who can protect me; woman is seeking protector and shelter, the sky responds with the final line of the poem: Make it yourself. You are on your own.