The artist, Paul Wirhun, is a master of the ancient Ukrainian folk art known as pysanky, a type of egg decorating that he learned from his mother.   Since 1990, he has engaged this tradition in a professional art career (see attached resume), exploring the visual languages possible on different types of shells.  As an autodidact, Mr. Wirhun has also developed innovative techniques (including the bleach-painting technique to be employed in this project) that have moved his work beyond the known tradition of egg-batiking (pysanky).

Through July 31, 2004, Mr. Wirhun is participating in the critically acclaimed show “Terror Vision” at Exit Art, with a sculpture called “21 Skull Salute.”  As suggested by the title, this piece is a bowl of 21 skull eggs, a mock reference to the funerary salute given to veterans.  Here is one critical review describing this piece:

Paul Wirhun polishes 21 eggs to a glossy sheen, paints a toothy skull on each one and heaps the lot of them onto a pile. The morbid mass implicitly refers to towers of corpses in those indelible photos of concentration camps, and even more directly to the pyramid of skulls in "The Apotheosis of War," painted in 1871 by the Russian Vasily Vasilyevich Vereshchagin to bear witness to wartime atrocities. The Wirhun sculpture is peculiarly beautiful in a dark way, perhaps because of the tension between the symbol of fertility and the international sign of death painted on its shell.

Besides showing his work on eggs in many solo and group shows, Mr. Wirhun has led many public demonstrations and classes teaching traditional Ukrainian egg decorating, as well as the innovative techniques he has developed.  He has received strong positive feedback for his teaching skills with diverse age groups and populations.  Such settings have included:

Jamaica High School’s Gateway Program (see attached referent materials)

SONY Music Corporation’s Diversity Program

Slater Memorial Museum (Norwich, CT) Multi-Cultural Program

The Church of Craft

Provincetown, MA Elementary School

For further information, go to www.paulwirhun.com