A new book of essays by art critic and public lecturer Diana Klochko, Self-Portraits of Thirteen Ukrainian Women, is dedicated to a genre of visual art that has so far largely remained outside the attention of Ukrainian art criticism, namely the self-portrait as a means of self-exploration and self-construction of the artist. In the essays offered, the choice of the protagonists is subjective, but in total, the author builds a certain overarching plot that covers more than a century of visual experiments.
The works under discussion-mostly graphic and pictorial, although there are also photographs here-for various reasons have not been exhibited or discussed for a long time, so today the field for interpretation of these images remains very wide, especially in the context of the massive spread of selfie culture on social networks. The author's introduction of some conflicts from her own life gives the essays a unique intimate sound and turns the entire text into another attempt at self-portraiture.
The publication contains numerous color reproductions of self-portraits by Ukrainian artists that are rarely available or have never been published before.
