Bouquet of flowers 1959

Kateryna Bilokur made this *Bouquet of Flowers* sometime in the mid-twentieth century with oil on canvas, and it's a wild explosion of color and detail. I can really get a sense of her process, the way she builds up the layers, not trying to hide the work, just letting it all accumulate. I love the way she renders each petal and leaf with such precision, almost like she's cataloging every single plant in her garden. It’s interesting how the surface of this work has so much going on. Up close, I see so many thin layers of paint, almost like watercolor, but then she builds it up with these thick, juicy strokes. Look at the center of the red poppy – the way she layers the paint to create that velvety texture is just incredible. For me, the folk art tradition shares a lot of qualities with the work of someone like Henri Rousseau, whose paintings are similarly painstaking in their attention to detail, but with a slightly surreal, dreamlike quality. Ultimately, this work celebrates seeing, feeling, and the sheer joy of making.