THE “MULTICULTURAL” PHENOMENON INHERENT IN WILLIAM KURELEK’S CREATIVE METHOD: RESEARCH AND RESULTS

This article analyses the uniqueness of the creative multiculturalism employed by the Canadian-Ukrainian artist William Kurelek. In the works of Kurelek, a synthetic approach is traced, based on a long-term analysis of the historical context, socio-cultural environment and futuristic forecasts. His comparative worldview arose not only as a result of observations, but is also visible through the ideas reflected in his works. Based on its artistic analysis of Kurelek’s works, this article studies the development of Kurelek’s authorial technique — which he described as “mixed” for good reason, due to his experimental application of a plethora of artistic methods in his works. The artist’s enhanced his synthesis of stylistic features from both the renaissance and modernist repertoire by means of fiction and his own writing practices. Due to Kurelek’s childhood experience, his immigrant grandparents, and later, his own experience of his “dual” identity, it was very important for the artist to record in his paintings the presence and contributions of each immigrant group comprising Canada’s multicultural society. Kurelek’s authorial style consists of several components: 1) the uniqueness of the author’s artistic technique obtained through long-term experiments based on his artistic training (at professional schools, from the teachings of Nicolaides, and self-education); 2) the synthesis of analysed stylistic techniques, the main features of which Kurelek transformed using his own distinct artistic and compositional language; 3) the idea of painting chronicles that documented the driving processes behind immigration to Canadian, as well as the relations between immigrants and representatives of the First Nations (the Eskimo and the Huron); 4) the consistency and “moral loyalty” in Kurelek’s choice of topical social issues for the content of his paintings; 5) the artist’s literary explorations in terms of his illustrations for poems and fictional essays. The first feature of Kurelek’s style is his unique mixed painting technique, the “recipe” of which he developed during different periods of his career. Kurelek’s arsenal of expressive artistic media included: oil, acrylic, pastel, pencil, pen, sprays, lacquers, and wax. The artist not only painted with a brush; he also scratched, carved, and sanded his works. It was not interesting for Kurelek to show the simple fact of immigrants’ existence in Canada — rather, he always sought to convey the cause and effect, as well as the interactions between and national differences of each group. The artist had to create with unlimited freedom, and find everything necessary to do so from the depths of his inner world.

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