Ukraine Calling (Marta Dyczok).

About the book

> _Ukraine Calling_ by Marta Dyck (Berlin: Berlinische Galerie, 2019) is a collection of paintings made during Mardi Gras in Los Angeles, California. The book includes work from three different series: Birds, People and Couples, and Meant to Be Me. The series Birds highlights scenes inspired by birds—their everyday living habits, as well as images popularized by flight advertisements. People and couples series features many of Dyck's friends and family as well as personal autobiographical subjects. Finally, in the series Meant To Be Me, Dyck focuses on people from her extended community in Mardis Gras and Hawaii. Review

The book is curated and designed by London-based curator Jamie David from the rare books section of Modern and Contemporary Polish Literature at the British Library, The British Library also owns the author's work. Dyck had studied painting in Harvard and MIT before enrolling in both Degrees in English from Columbia University in New York City and finishing her thesis on an individual who marries into the dysfunctional and disaffected theatrical Marxist family of her young student-roommate, Florence, and writes about their relationship in her collection of forty two watercolors, painted over a one-month period during her summer internship in Los Angeles. With a distinct feel of childhood moments recalled across colorful landscapes, the intricate style that follows natural science color rendering, with hints of film noir, of which a painted copy of Pierre Louis Rougier's poster The Night of the Dying Swan. A few of the muses are reincarnations of known figures in Florence's life or in multiple stories that she shares with artists and audience alike."Marta says, "Mostly, my style evolves. Anything that might feel stiff, for me, does not, but is organic. Like a social butterfly." Many times, she says, if the character in the story is warm like a person she has some connection with, it just translates better visually.