Fedir Tetyanich

Fedir Tetyanich (1942 – 2007) is a Ukrainian painter, conceptualist, and performer. He invented the imaginary country "Fripulia", which grew from the ideas of a cybernetic Paradise, the possibility of life in open space conditions. Country "Fripulia" became the basis of the artist's life and work. This phenomenon grew into "biotechnospheres" - installations and parts of the artist's performances, spherical constructions, where everything is necessary for human survival during a disaster. The artist's works are kept in national and private museums of Ukraine and the USA, as well as in auction houses. His mosaic panels decorate the facades of the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, the "Flowering Gardens" shopping center, 1976.

Fedir Tetyanich is one of the first to discuss the possibility of a future apocalypse. His "Madonna and Child" is executed in the iconographic type "The Virgin of Warning". The heavy monolithic forms of Maria and her son stare into the viewer and interact with him, provoking emotions. The child's raised hand covering the Mother's face warns of danger. The work was painted before the Chornobyl disaster and symbolizes the state of society, which was terrified by the future. The Mother of God trying to cover her son with her hands symbolizes all the innocent. On the other hand, Christ calmly observes and forces us to recover, to look at the consequences of thoughtlessness and arrogance.