FRAGMENTS: A Solo Exhibition by Olha Barvynka
July 25–30, 2025 | Sixteen Gallery, Cheltenham
Private View: Friday, July 25th, 6 PM
Opening Hours: Daily 10 AM – 5 PM
Address: 16 Rotunda Terrace, Montpelier Street, Cheltenham, GL50 1SW
Presented by USAID and Sixteen Gallery
Private View: Friday, July 25th, 6 PM
Opening Hours: Daily 10 AM – 5 PM
Address: 16 Rotunda Terrace, Montpelier Street, Cheltenham, GL50 1SW
Presented by USAID and Sixteen Gallery
Cheltenham’s Sixteen Gallery is proud to present FRAGMENTS, a solo exhibition by Ukrainian abstract artist Olha Barvynka, on view from July 25th to July 30th, 2025. Currently based in the UK, Barvynka brings a deeply personal and politically resonant perspective to material-based abstraction, informed by her lived experience of displacement and historical upheaval.
In this compelling body of work, Barvynka explores the dynamic interplay between visual form, modularity, and the cyclical processes of creation and collapse. Through a series of abstract paintings and sculptures, FRAGMENTS investigates what happens when incompatible elements are forced into coexistence—and how, through fragmentation, new forms can emerge.
Barvynka works with found materials such as fragmented cardboard, metal, concrete, glass, and textile, constructing compositions that balance tension and transformation. Her sculptural and painted works are modular in structure: each piece functions independently, yet also contributes to larger composite arrangements. This approach allows for multiple configurations, echoing the cyclical, unresolved nature of historical and personal trauma.
Architectural motifs recur throughout the exhibition—walls, beams, and stair-like forms—suggesting both human ingenuity and the scars of destruction. Colour plays a central role: layered transparently in her paintings, it evokes emotional and spatial depth, embodying the raw psychological terrain of collapse and recovery.
Fragmentation acts as both material method and conceptual language. Blurred lines, broken edges, and unstable geometries speak to disintegration—but also to the potential for renewal. Barvynka’s work challenges us to consider the hidden costs of reconstruction:
What does it take to create something truly new?
Where does the process begin, and what must be left behind?
How do these cycles unfold across global systems—and within our everyday lives?
FRAGMENTS is both a meditation and a provocation. Through her refined visual language, Barvynka invites us to reflect on the relationship between personal memory, collective trauma, and the elusive hope of utopia
