The Big Picture- Art Writings by Lorette C. Luzajic

Defiant Stories: Lana Matskiv

10/24/2025

For the Sake of Her Children, by Lana Matskiv (Canada, b. Ukraine) 2022

Defiant Stories

Anyone who has met Lana Matskiv in person is already aware of the storyteller spell. Lana the artist is first and foremost a storyteller. She is an archetype, an astute observer and a magnetic force that draws everyone in and holds them close. When talking with her at a soiree, Lana’s audience leans in instinctively to catch every word.

She talks about the stories inside the paintings of others, sharing her passion for the visual world. She recounts fables and fairy tales and operas. She tells of her own harrowing scrapes. Most of all, she glows when sharing a fellow traveller’s triumphs and tragedies. She is right there with them every step of the way.

This is what you must listen for when looking at Lana’s paintings. Despite immediate impressions of exquisite colourship, of impossible precision, flawless perspective, and mastery of composition-  the artist as storyteller is how you must approach her art.

There are a multitude of labyrinthine rivers coursing under the surface of these stunning paintings, deep and wide with promise and meaning, with hurtful and hopeful histories, blood and water as real as that running through your own veins. Because it is yours: in the layers of fairy tale and fancy, of history and hell, Lana paints for the truth that lies at the bottom of the well but always spills out, defiantly, and ready for battle and beauty.

No matter what Lana’s paintings show on their surface, they are her story, told through the story of others. Whether a portrait, or an homage to a cultural treasure, or a scene from folklore or ballet, Lana paints about wandering, about movement, about migration. This road is best taken by choice, when we follow our hearts and curiosities to learn more about others and the world, or by chance, when wanderlust changes our course and becomes part of our fate. Of course, the road is too often the desperate path of refugees or immigrants sacrificing home for hope of a life of freedom from oppression. The dance is one of danger and bitter obstacles for too many. But even so, there is beauty in each story.

Over thirty years ago, Ukrainian-Canadian artist Lana Matskiv fled the Soviet Union with nothing but six dollars, her teenage daughter, and a rolled-up painting in her possession. Anything else she had was left behind, or taken from her en route. She was a journalist by profession, interested in people’s stories, in their cultures and histories. This curiosity and compassion, along with her own experiences, informed her lifelong interest in themes of migration and immigration,  wanderers, travellers, refugees, and settlers. She has been driven to understand what is behind people and what is in front of them when it comes to the dangers and promises of the road. Is home something you leave behind, or something you carry in your soul?

Lana’s interest in the arts is lifelong.  “In a country where religion was forbidden, the god in my family was art,” she says.

Born in Poltava in Central Ukraine, art and literature surrounded her. Her family prized writers and philosophers connected to local history, Gogol, Kotlianarevsky, Kotsybuynsky, Lesia Ukrainka. Childhood in Ukraine meant total envelopment and saturation in folk arts such as embroidery, kilim weaving, and pysanka- elaborate decoration of Easter eggs with pre-Christian astrological patterns. Everywhere, there was Petrykivka painting, a decorative folk art tradition from Central Ukraine. Paintings of floral and avian motifs on freshly whitewashed abode walls, ceiling beams, boxes, hearths and more brought colourful cheer to the atmosphere and celebrated humanity’s place inside the natural environment. Each bird and flower held unique symbolism of eternity, masculine and feminine beauty, harmony, eternity, and the cyclical rebirth of nature.

Lana attended art school in Kharkiv, and had private instruction in Odessa, where she also frequented regular literary gatherings or exhibitions of artists in secret studios. Many artists were jailed, exiled, or forbidden to paint or show their work. It didn’t make sense for a middle-class girl to become an artist in this political climate. Becoming a teacher was seen as a stable or respectable option. Lana also had a passion for literature and a gift for writing, but she was most drawn to what she calls “faction” rather than fiction- she was interested in the real stories. She had an aptitude for history and politics and an instinct for people, so she went into journalism.

This very appreciation for stories past and present, for cultural diversity and expression, was the same reason for her continued interest in visual literacy. Art is the fingerprint of a culture, the way  a culture reveals itself. It is also about her deep connection to people as individuals, because art is the way we express our unique perspectives and communicate with each other across time and across borders. Lana still yearned to create art herself, but as a newcomer in Canada, she found meaningful legal work. She was busy with pragmatic and urgent work helping other refugees. While she used her professional life to help newcomers land and build their lives, she was forging connections and friendships and imprinting the stories of their lives on her soul.

She also became something that is perhaps even more important than the creation of art- a collector of art. Lana built an impressive collection of art through her years in Canada, starting with her artist friend’s rolled up portrait that she brought with her. The Matskiv Collection is something rare, a rich and eclectic range of works of Canadian and European painters, focused heavily on Ukraine. Some jewels include Viktor Gontarov and Mykola Mogylat. Collecting art is arguably the best education available. It involves commitment, conviction, and sacrifice. The Matskiv Collection has been exhibited at the Palette School of Art in Vaughan, and her door has always been open for private tours.

Seven years ago, the many roads and branches of Lana’s life intersected by chance or destiny. Lana was returning home from some errands and saw that a woman was set up outside of her home, painting a watercolour streetscape. Of course Lana struck up a conversation with the artist, Manije Sabet, who happened to be a recent immigrant from Iran. Lana signed her daughter up for art classes at Manije’s studio, and before long acquired a piece for the Matskiv collection as well. At the second scheduled instructional, Lana’s daughter was late and the artist invited her to come in and draw rather than waiting idly. A sleeping giant came to life in that moment. “Since that time, I never stopped,” Lana says.

There are many paths available to an artist today, and many modes of expression. But while Lana sees immense beauty in all kinds of forms, she is an intense, thorough person and for herself, there was only one possibility, the hardest one. “I wanted to draw and paint,” she says. “And I had to learn how to draw and paint realistically.”

“The world did not need another amateurish landscape or still life. The pursuit was only worth my while if I learned to do it on an acceptable professional level.”

Lana was working full time and was a mother, too, and she was not sure how to resolve this issue. But she felt she had something important to say, and on another level, she understood that all her pursuits and experiences were now converging. There was no choice but to go forward with this calling.

She had stories to tell.

Lana began her work with Oleh Nedoshytko, a private instructor from Odessa that she invited to Canada. They worked together from a method known as “constructivism,” which is essentially dissecting subjects into their essential geometric forms. A second method was the French Atelier way, which involved exercises to develop motor skills, following the mantra to “draw what you see.”

Lana’s nature, of course, was to decide she needed to learn both methods to get where she was going. She began working at the Toronto Academy of Realist Art, founded by internationally renowned teacher Fernando Freitas. She also undertook studies at the George Brown in Fine Art Foundations for a helpful overview of anatomy, art history, composition, design fundamentals, and illustration.

In this short time, Lana has already given birth to a vast and difficult body of work, painting and drawing around the clock. Her art has already been exhibited, collected, awarded, and auctioned. Her work was part of a Waddington’s fundraiser for Ukraine, and it was displayed at the Ukrainian embassy. It is in the permanent collection of the Ukrainian Canadian Art Foundation.

A careful observer will see Lana’s vulnerability leaking from the edges of her confident brushstrokes. She has rigorous expectations for herself, but isn’t interested in adulation for her gifts of draughtsmanship, or in the way she can focus and construct a likeness in time and space. She credits her teachers for these talents, and wants her work to be recognized for something else. “Even the chairs at Fernando’s Academy can learn to draw reasonably well in a short period of time,” she claims, as if a brilliant instructor can transform a lump of coal to gold with nothing in talent or labour from the artist herself.

When I marvel with the helpless jealousy of another artist next to a master’s talents, Svetlana dismisses my praise. “It’s something that anyone can learn, with practice,” she tells me, as if the magic of light on ballet’s silk or ancient coral beads is a passing trifle. But these paintings could not be created on emotion alone - they required a gruelling commitment of time and patience, a remarkable talent, and a dedication to work and study that few painters possess.

But we can understand where Lana is coming from if we understand what fuels her passion to create art. This is not merely the desire for self-expression or for a creative outlet. This is about all the experiences she has amassed along the way, absorbed from her culture in the occupied Ukraine, accumulated from the voices she has worked to free. These paintings are not about the meticulous tonal variegation or the painstaking accuracy of their objects. They are about struggle, survival, soul, and beauty.

“What does it for me it to capture form, shape, and colour in the world around me, as they are divine. But they only live on a support surface if they have a spirit and get my message across,” Lana explains.

The stories are dense and richly layered, in literary allusions and references to fairy tales and folklore. They are there in homages to other artists, to writers, to mythologies. They are woven in the brushstrokes that bring symbols and motifs across vast geographies, across time. They are written into the traditions Lana acknowledges in patterns. They are lurking in the faces of her models. They are written in the flowers and birds.

“For this show, I prepared a story about wanderers…They defy the gravity of the comfort zone and embark on the road not only by choice, or by trade, but too often by circumstances larger than themselves. But there is much beauty along the way. The beauty they encounter, and the beauty of spirit they develop. I hope I captured some of it in these paintings. Much more to come.”

Lorette C. Luzajic

This essay was previously published in Lana Matskiv: Paintings and Graphic Works, 2022, the catalogue that accompanied the artist's exhibition at the Shevchenko Museum, Toronto. It formed the basis of the keynote speech Lorette gave at the opening of the exhibition.