Ostap passed away a year ago, on Christmas Eve. Lately, I tend to use the word "passed" rather than "died" or "faded away." Because it feels as if someone was so very close to you that you couldn’t see them in their full essence, and then they "passed"… just for a short time… and allowed you to assess, from a distance, the real scale of their presence. It goes without saying how hard it is to work on Ostap Lozynsky’s project without Ostap Lozynsky. It’s like an interrupted line, or a string or spring we are trying to hold on to. The time that separated us is still too short for us to clearly organize and analyze his artistic legacy without a sense of despair and tears. We miss Ostap Lozynsky, and this pain will not cease. However, we can, together with his friends, colleagues, and those who appreciated his art, try to take the first step to reconstruct the line he, as we now see, drew into infinity. And, first of all, we are talking about the icon. They say that if you divide a line into two parts – a larger and a smaller one – the whole line will relate to the larger segment just as the larger part relates to the smaller one. This is a universal principle of harmony that reveals itself in nature, human beings, science, and art. The principle of the golden ratio. Once, during a conversation, Ostap shared his observation – he intentionally checked his works from different years and found that this principle always manifested itself, even though he never consciously divided the space he created into segments and squares. We have remained, becoming the smaller segment, and we are trying very hard to preserve the proportional relationship.

So, with collective effort, we gathered more than seventy of Ostap’s icons, with which we are trying to mark at least the main points of his journey in iconography: his first attempts at icon painting rooted in family tradition; the search for the icon in painting and the emulation of his favorite masters during his studies; a passion for folk images and working on continuing folk traditions in glass icons; immersion in the technology and iconography of ancient Ukrainian icons; and the search for his place among both old and new Ukrainian and European masters. The places of creative and spiritual strength: Lviv, its churches, houses, museums, people, and celebrations… The artistic project "From Roman to Jordan" (2010–2021) grew in Lviv. The Carpathians – a space for relaxation, inspiration, and work, especially Kosiv with its antique markets and Kryvorivnya with impromptu plein airs every summer since 2011. This is where the Kryvorivnyanska icon-chapel under the open sky (2014) was created, and where icons for the Jagiellonian Fair in Lublin (2013-2018) were made, as well as ideas for autumn plein airs. Krynytsia, Novytsia, and the international plein air of icon painters in Novytsia (2012–2021). This is Lemkivshchyna, where Nykyfor and Bohdan-Ihor Antonych were born, whom Ostap admired, and where theatrical, musical, and artistic events take place. This is where Ostap grew as an icon painter, and where his friends, artists, grew around him. In addition, there were plein airs in Truskavets (2017-2021), Lourdes (2018), and Kryvorivnya (2021)... Figures that appear in his images: Oleksa Novakivsky, Roman Sel’sky, Margit Sel’ska, Bohdan Soroka, Henri Matisse, Yuriy Novoselsky, Andrej and Klymentiy Sheptytsky, Saint Nicholas, Apostle Peter, and the beloved Virgin Mary with Child... From all this, personal artistic projects were born – “In the Image and Likeness” (2012), “The Road” (2014), “Alarm. Sketch for a Landscape” (2017), “Puzzles” (2017-2018), and the last one – “De Anima” (2021). Memories from friends, Ostap’s comments, and everything we managed to gather seems very important, though somewhat chaotic – it’s like trying to collect the suddenly interrupted creation of Ostap’s sacred space, which resonates with our shared search for a person, a soul, and God:

“I’m engaged in contemporary iconography because, after all, I am a modern person and a contemporary artist. Iconography is a sort of meditation for me. Above all, it’s a meditation of thought. When you work on an icon, meanings matter, meanings that are valuable not only to you. You must not cross a certain ideological boundary, the red line. This is something to remember.”

Maria Tsymbalista