TOMASHEVSKA VIRA

Member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine (1995).

She was born on 3 July 1956 in Neresnytsia village of Tiachiv district, Transcarpathia. She received her artistic education at the Uzhhorod School of Applied Arts and graduated from its art ceramics department in 1975. She continued her studies at the Kyiv State Art Institute (now National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture) at the Faculty of Theory and History of Art. Her teachers were I. Harapko, V. Svyda, V. Berets, P. Shandor, and L. Averkiieva.

After studying, she worked as a ceramist and porcelain artist at an art-industrial enterprise in Vynohradiv, at the Art Fund of the Ukrainian SSR, and taught at the Uzhhorod School of Applied Arts.

As noted by art historians, the ceramic world of Vira Tomashevska is saturated with an absolute harmonious perfection, captivates with generosity, variety, joy, harmony, and just with beauty. The artist works with clay and multi-coloured glazing. She started as a ceramist-monumentalist. The genius of the idea, which actually reveals the story of her creativity, is to give a chamber form to the similar ceramic product. So, the voluminous ceramic parts, sometimes of jewellery refinement, but more often expressive in their conciseness, are attached to a canvas, usually close to each other.

The artist has an extraordinary gift to enchant the viewers with the magical power of their ceramic works. According to experts, her versatile easel and decorative panels – ornamental, zoomorphic, still life, architectural and landscape – are distinguished by elegant imagery, where national traditions are combined with contemporary culture.

Tomashevska makes her original panels like a mosaic or collage within the framework of the author's technique developed in the 1980s. She makes the relief elements of a panel, measuring from 1 to 20 centimetres and moulded from the formation, as modules, in one usually square composition, sticking to a solid base.

When creating decorative panels, the artist fills each plot with an exciting narration on exciting topics: natural elements, fabulous cities, mountains and rivers, birds and flowers or just decorative collared compositions. A special place in the artist's work is occupied by compositions on religious themes.

Since 1975, she has participated in regional, republican and foreign exhibitions. The first personal exposition was held in Uzhhorod in 1985. Personal exhibitions also took place in Uzhhorod (1996), Kyiv (1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2007, 2006, 2007), Moscow (1999), cities of Croatia (1989) and Germany (1990). Participated in the international plein air in Hungary.

She created a series of relief works in the sports complex of handball in Kyiv region (1986), decorative vases in the interior of the offices at the railway station in Chop (1988), landscape park sculpture at the "Kvitka Polonyny" sanatorium (1990) and others.

Her works are in the National Bank of Ukraine, the Embassy of the USA to Ukraine, the Embassies of Ukraine to Belgium, China, the UK, as well as in private collections in the USA, Russia, Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia, Italy, and other countries.

In 2016, the catalogue "Vira Tomashevska Art of Ceramics: A Book-Album" was published in the Pottery library of Ukraine, Kyiv.