Padun Volodymyr
Padun Volodymyr (June 25, 1942, Plavni village, Zaporizhia region – September 21, 2016, Dnipro, Dnipropetrovsk region) is a Ukrainian painter. He worked in the field of easel painting. Collector of works of folk art. Member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine (1990).
He was born into a working-class family of parents and two older sisters. Vladimir spent his life fully feeling the full force of the postwar famine. From childhood he had to work hard, achieving everything on their own.
Volodymyr graduated from the 8th grade of secondary school, after which, while still a minor, he went to work on the tram track in Zaporizhia. At the same time he played in a brass band, tram park where he worked part-time at parades. However, this was not what the future artist wanted, so he later went to study at an art studio where he studied for a month. After that, he was immediately invited to work as a set designer at the Shchors Theater. This was the beginning of his creative path. Leaving the art studio, Vladimir Makarovich began to take plaster casts from there and continued to practice in the theater, after work. He often drew other workers, made sketches and sketches, honing his skills. He worked there for 2 years.
In 1962, Volodymyr was drafted into the army, where he served for 2 years in Bolgrad, Odessa region, as a regimental artist. In 1964 he entered the Dnepropetrovsk Art School. Vuchetych (Dnipro Theater and Art College). He took his studies very seriously, performed all the tasks, drew a lot, spoke on behalf of the school at various competitions and contests. That period was marked by a great growth of artistic skill of the future artist.
After graduating from school and having excellent grades in special. subjects, Padun received a characteristic-referral to a higher educational institution. Therefore, in the same year he went to St. Petersburg to enter the Higher Art School. Mukhina (St. Petersburg State Academy of Arts and Industry named after OL Stiglitz) at the Faculty of Monumental Painting, where he studied for a year. However, then the artist was at a crossroads – to go on to study at school or go his own way, because at that time he already had a personal program. He wanted to study Ukraine. In the end, Vladimir chose self-education. Eventually, on the 500th anniversary of the Cossacks, the artist took an oath at the grave of Sirka and joined the grassroots Cossack fraternity.
At that time, V. Padun was already living in a civil marriage with his future wife Pinusova Nina Trokhimivna, who significantly influenced the formation of Volodymyr as an artist. Assisting him in all endeavors, Nina Trokhimivna was the main support for Vladimir, which led him to the top. In 1968, after graduating from the Dnipropetrovsk Art School, the couple had a son, Volodymyr, and Padun was forced to work in the design bureau. During that period he met such artists as Valery Grechany, Yevhen Dyrkach and Oleksandr Samylenko. They went to study together in Ihren, as a result of which each of them was formed in his personal direction, and later they began to be called “Ihren school”. It was then that V. Padun says that he became an artist, here is what he himself says about it:
“When I showed my work to Grechan, he told me, ‘Throw all the artists out of your head and draw on the impression.’ I changed the technique and started looking for ways to implement these impressions. That’s how I became an artist in a month. ”
V. Padun was first admitted to the exhibition in 1970, with his work “Dried Will” – a dry thistle on the background of a Cossack grave. In the same year his daughter Vera was born. This work was his debut. However, after this exhibition, the artist’s work ceased to be accepted for twenty long years, which were accompanied by constant persecution by the Soviet authorities, until the very independence of Ukraine.
All these years V. Padun persistently and purposefully continued to study Ukraine, despite persecution and pressure. During these twenty years, accompanied by relentless painting and self-improvement, the artist has risen to a new level. His works were distinguished among others by their rich color of Ukrainian nature. Bright colors clearly and harmoniously emphasized the artist’s love for his homeland. In them Padun VM reflected Ukraine as a whole, its folklore, plasticity, color, and all this led to the synthesis and invention of his original, personal language of writing. He went to his theme – “The language of our region in the fine arts.”