Artists Oksana and Volodymyr Rybotytskyi
In Lviv, at the Sosnowski Palace on General Chuprynka Street, lives a married couple of artists, Oksana and Volodymyr Rybotytskyi. They have been together for nearly 60 years, blending their creative work with teaching and raising children. Oksana specializes in textile art, focusing on hand weaving and tapestry creation, while Volodymyr concentrates on painting, particularly creating pictures.
Meeting and Creativity
The couple first met in 1965 while studying at the Lviv Institute of Decorative and Applied Arts, during an art history lecture. Volodymyr Rybotytskyi recalls:
“I was leaving the institute, and I saw a group of students standing around, listening to something. I looked and saw this girl named Oksana. She was telling something, and everyone was listening very attentively. Well, I was drawn to her, and I watched her, thinking what an interesting girl Oksana was. I thought: that will probably be my wife.” — Volodymyr Rybotytskyi
Oksana, in turn, describes her classmates: “Three guys were sitting there in identical sailor jackets. And they had Shevchenko pins. I thought, oh, these are the three musketeers, and the Shevchenko pin means they’re our kind of guys.”
The couple chose their apartment under the palace roof because they needed top light for their creative work. Volodymyr single-handedly restored the neglected attic, throwing out old boards, re-roofing, whitewashing the space, and installing new floors. 'I did a huge amount of work here: I completely restored the skylight, all by hand. I threw out those sheets and boards, re-roofed everything. I whitewashed the inside, put in floors because there was nothing, and started working. Working here was pleasant, with enjoyment,' Volodymyr notes.
Oksana’s creative work requires significant effort and time. 'This is a very difficult art form because experienced masters in the past, those large tapestries you see in museums, figurative ones on a thin silk base, were woven at a rate of one square meter per year,' she explains. Oksana also describes her process: 'I draw with a pencil what I need to do here, what figure. Then, based on that drawing, I make a contour with a thread. There, I sew a needle depending on which color I need, sewing the entire contour of the drawing. Then I fill it with various colored threads.'
The Rybotytskyi couple shares a common dream: creating a catalog of their works and winning the war. 'The number one dream is victory. Again, victory, victory. Personally, I pray that God grants health and that creative inspiration never runs out, so we can create as many works as possible for our country, for our heritage,' Oksana emphasizes.
Today, they are part of important cultural activities in Ukraine. In the Dnipropetrovsk region, for instance, about 35,000 artifacts have been relocated, and works by master Yehor Tolkunov have been identified as illegally exhibited in Simferopol. The Rybotytskyi couple continues to invest their energy in the development of art and the preservation of Ukraine’s cultural heritage.
The creativity of the Rybotytskyi couple illustrates the importance of art in the face of modern challenges, particularly during the war in Ukraine. Their contribution to preserving cultural heritage and advancing art education not only enriches Ukrainian culture but also underscores the role of art as a tool for unifying society. At a time when many artists face hardships due to the war, their desire to keep creating and sharing their work stands as a symbol of hope and resilience.