Petro Smetana catalogue

Petro Smetana art painting Catalogue editorial design book drey dark grey minimalistic paint

Petro Smetana – c a t a l o g u e

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An artist developed his own unique technology of mixing and applying materials, allowing it to create a variety of textures and reliefs. The deep game the rough matte and glossy surfaces emphasize Smetana's expressive art. Characteristic of the work is thorough and rigorous selection in mass and composition. These features are reflected in concise concept of the book.

In the design of the cover were used restrained and elegant colors. Glossy and matte coating and a fragment of the original artwork were applied on its surface. Especially for this project Petro Smetana created two paintings that were later cut into 700 pieces. Each piece was affixed to a vertical rectangular hole in the cover. So seven hundred copies each is unique and contains the original signature of the artist in the form of authentic paintings.

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Сoncept was created in close collaboration with the artist. …overall graphic tone of the catalogue is straight, calm and harsh in the same time.

The book contains roughly 50 works of the contemporary Ukrainian artist, mostly exploring processes of transformations in Smetana's art language. The collection includes reproductions of paintings from the years 2013-2016. The task was to design a classic catalogue, consisting of four sections.

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The first part of the book is composed by the Volodymyr Husar's and Kateryna Hai's essays, containing photos from artist's studio. It also included quotes and notes of famous Ukrainian artists describing Petro Smetana's work. It presented the design challenge of finding a way for it to run simultaneously in two languages (Ukrainian and English).

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The second section consisted of photographs of the works and was more straignforward in its approach. For the work reproduction section, biggest concern was to create a very calm and controlled visual environment for the works to be seen. White and grey backgrounds were used.

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Next section included artist's short bio and a chronological list of the main exhibitions. There were used the same red accents as in the first section.