Exhibition Closing - Amidst Cries from the Rubble: Art of Loss and Resilience from Ukraine

Artist Bios

Lyuba Yakimchuk is an award-winning poet, playwright, and screenwriter born in 1985 in Luhansk, Ukraine. She is the author of several poetry collections, including Apricots of Donbas (2015), which was published in English by Lost Horse Press (2021). The French translation of the book was shortlisted for the prestigious 2024 Prix Mallarmé, and actress Catherine Deneuve recorded an audiobook version. Yakimchuk has also written two plays and two film scripts, including one for the 2017 documentary The Slovo House, which explores the lives of Ukrainian modernist artists arrested and executed during the Stalinist purges. She has presented her work on renowned stages, including the 2022 Grammy Awards alongside John Legend. Her writing has received numerous awards, been translated into more than 20 languages, and featured in The New York Times, BBC, CBC, and CNN.

Pianist Pavel Gintov has been praised as “a poet of the keyboard” (Illinois Entertainer), a “musical storyteller” (Shikoku News, Japan), and “a fantastic pianist and extraordinary artist” (Fanfare Magazine). He made his debut at the Kyiv Philharmonic Hall at age 12 and has since toured extensively across Europe, Asia, Africa, and the United States, performing on renowned stages such as Carnegie Hall in New York, Berlin Philharmonic Hall, and Teatro Verdi Nazionale in Milan. Gintov holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Manhattan School of Music in New York City, where he studied with Nina Svetlanova.

Sevda is a six-member, Santa Fe-based mixed choir led by Grammy Award-winning vocalist Willa Roberts. The ensemble performs music from the Balkans, Eastern Europe, the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, and the Baltic. Drawn to the profound storytelling, tight harmonies, complex rhythms, and vocal acrobatics of these traditions, Sevda brings to life spring calling songs, ballads of love, loss, and bliss, as well as tales of resistance and sagas of epic heroes and gods—transporting audiences to another place and time.

We are grateful to the International Folk Art Foundation, Friends of Folk Art, and donors to the Museum of New Mexico Exhibition Development Fund, including Mark Naylor and Dale Gunn, Gwenn and Eivind Djupedal, Rosalind Doherty, Barbara Forslund, David Vogel and Larry Fulton, The Gale Family Foundation, and TOKo Santa Fe for their support of Amidst Cries from the Rubble: Art of Loss and Resilience from Ukraine and its related programming.

Image: Повелителька дронів (Lady of the Drones) · Roman Selivachov, b. 1976 · 2024 · Kyiv, Ukraine · Wooden base from ammunition box, egg tempera, gold leaf