Mazuryk, Omelian

Mazuryk, Omelian [Мазурик, Омелян], b 2 February 1937 in Brezhava, Dobromyl county, Galicia, d 14 November 2002 in Vaujours near Paris, France. Painter and iconographer. A graduate of the Wrocław Art School (1958) and the Cracow Academy of Fine Arts (1964), he came to Paris in 1967 to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and remained in that city. Following his solo exhibition in 1972 in Paris, he had many others in France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Canada, and the United States of America. Mazuryk is best known for his religious paintings in Neo-Byzantine style, in which he synthesized expressionism, Ukrainian-Byzantine traditions, and folk art. He is one of the few Ukrainian artists who succeeded in creating icons that retain the spirituality of the ancient models but at the same time embody the experiences of the 20th century. Mazuryk’s icons for the iconostasis in the Saint Volodymyr Ukrainian Catholic Church in Paris are a fine example of modern Ukrainian church art. He also painted the iconostases in the chapels of the Shevchenko Scientific Society in Sarcelles, France, and the Ukrainian Catholic Holy Spirit Seminary in Ottawa, Canada. An atmosphere of mystery and unrest often pervades his landscapes, which display a great sensitivity to color gradations and an expressionistic brush stroke. In 1990 he had a solo exhibition in Lviv and was invited to teach icon painting at the Lviv Institute of Applied and Decorative Art.

Daria Zelska-Darewych

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]