War radically changes everything and everyone. Life and priorities, preferences and surroundings, and ultimately worldview become different. We become radically different. This is especially keenly felt by creative personalities, people of creative professions. Yes, someone stops. And someone, on the contrary, was pushed to the maximum realization by the trials. Own ambitious dreams and plans.
Natalia Mazur-Stepaniuk, whose personal exhibition "Another Me" opened on March 13 at the Central City Library named after M.L. Kropyvnytskyi, was a surprisingly focused person.
"Natalia Stepaniuk is generally known as a master weaver. For her tapestries, especially a series of tapestries based on the legends of the Tavria painting. Today we want to show her other creative side. After all, she is also a very good artist. We selected mainly spring works. These are flowers, landscapes. The exhibition is easy. The exhibition is sunny," says Valentyna Kryvtsova, head of the cultural and artistic association "Art-spokusa".
The personal exhibition "Another Me" is about a strong woman, a talented creative person and a lot of plans for the future. The residents of Mykolaiv were supposed to see it as early as March 2022. The war prevented the craftswoman from realizing her plans. Now each work is evaluated by the audience on a personal basis.
"It feels like it happened in some other life. That these are not my works at all. Now they live separate lives. And now I have to make friends with them. And once again, memories flooded in, some peaceful impressions flooded in. Send us there...to peacetime. I really want peace to come as soon as possible, so that we can simply enjoy life," the artist shares. Today Natalia Mazur-Stepaniuk works as an art teacher.
In 2022, the artist joined the creative community of the Cultural and Artistic Association "Art-Spokusa". At the same time, she became a participant in the project of the Central City Library named after M.L. Kropyvnytskyi "Berehynia of Ukraine". Its purpose is to acquaint the audience with the work of women of the front-line Hero City of Mykolaiv and to tell about their important role during the war.
During this creative period, the artist created and presented for the first time a series of woven tapestries "Based on the motives of Tavria legends". From 2023 to 2024, Natalia Mazur-Stepaniuk worked as a trainer in a series of educational projects of the NGO "Center for Adult Learning and Education "South": "Mykolaiv embroidery with Tavria painting", "Embroidered rushnyky based on the motifs of Tavria painting" and "Modern dresses decorated with Tavria painting". In March of this year, as part of the final event "Beauty on the Wave", the first author's collection of drawn dresses "Spring Breeze", in which Natalia made her debut as a clothing designer, was presented.
