Volodymyr Shapovalov and Modern Kharkiv Art Ceramics

This article is an attempt to characterize the influence of Volodymyr Shapovalov and the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts on the formation of the features of Kharkiv art ceramics in the late twentieth – early twenty-first century. The present article identifies and analyzes the nature of these features, which are an organic combination of scientific knowledge (philosophical, mathematical, technological) with the theory and practice of art. The thesis is that due to creative and pedagogical activity of Volodymyr Shapovalov, there is the only phenomenon in Ukraine, when the Academy, where the main emphasis is on the easel art and design, manages to organize a group of artists who have chosen ceramics as the main material for their creative pursuits and implementation. In fact, there emerges a school that demonstrates fundamentally different approaches to ceramics from those which are used in traditional pottery and ceramic schools. It is based on the “layering” of the work, the search for harmony in the embodiment of philosophical reflections and technological experiments in ceramics, on narrativity, on the attempt to understand the inner state of things. Attention is drawn to the peculiarities of the author’s method of mastering the theoretical and practical knowledge of ceramics. A certain set of special characteristics of Volodymyr Shapovalov’s creativity is defined and the presence of these features is clearly noticeable in the works of his students: Olexander Miroshnichenko, Olexey Podlipsky, Liza Mamay and Vyacheslav Pasynok. Volodymyr Shapovalov’s artistic language is considered in the context of a direct relationship with nature, close attention to detail, the application of scientific knowledge from various fields for creative and technological experiments in ceramics. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of the place and role of Kharkiv art ceramics in the context of modern ceramology and Ukrainian art process.