Shum art gallery

“Universal Landscape” is a series of etchings and enamels by Oksana Stratiychuk, which she has been working on since 2020. This series began during the pandemic and continues amid the war in Ukraine, yet it is not a direct reaction to current events. Rather, it is an attempt to turn to what remains unchanged despite human upheavals—to nature and its universal laws. At the heart of the series is neither a specific location nor a particular landscape. It is a landscape devoid of geography. It is shaped by fundamental elements: the horizontal and the vertical, light and space, water, trees, and mountains. These elements form the basis of the visual language through which the artist examines not a specific place, but the very essence of the landscape.

“My landscape consists of the horizontal and the vertical, water and trees; it embodies the very essence of the landscape, not a specific view,” says Oksana Stratiychuk.

The horizon in this series is not a real line, but rather a boundary between two elements that cannot be reached. Mountains become a symbol of infinity, trees a sign of life and time, and water an image of continuous movement. In this way, individual natural motifs are transformed into universal archetypes.