The Ethnology Notebooks. 2026. № 2 (188), 413—422
UDK 73/76:003.64:929
DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/10.15407/nz2026.02.413
- Received: 12.02.2026
- Accepted: 11.03.2026
- Published: 27.04.2026
BETWEEN NAME AND SIGN: THE SIGNATURE IN THE SELF-PRESENTATION OF OPANAS ZALYVAKHA
BABII Nadiia
- ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9572-791X
- DSc in Art Studies, Professor,
- Vasyl Stefanyc Carpathian National University,
- 57, Shevchenko St., 76000, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine,
- Contacts: e-mail: nadiia.babii@cnu.edu.ua
Abstract. This publication continues a series of the author’s studies dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of the dissident artist Opanas Zalyvakha. The aim of the article is to analyze his authorial signature on works of art. This graphic sign is examined from the perspective of a communicative strategy of self-presentation: as an act of identifying the artwork, a sign of the «author’s presence», and an inseparable unity of the visual sign and its semantic content. Particular attention is paid to the issue of the artist’s punctuation. The methodology is based on a combination of axiological, cultural, art historical, and hermeneutic approaches. The source base of the research includes paintings and graphic works by Opanas Zalyvakha and nonconformist artists, including Alla Horska and Viktor Zaretskyi, published in monographs, catalogues, and presented at exhibitions.
For the first time in Ukrainian art history, the authorial signature is analyzed through the prism of a phenomenological approach as a subjective act of the author’s presence and a demonstration of identity transformation within the artistic text. It is determined that a personal signature is a recurring form of writing one’s name that demonstrates a chosen model of behavior and significance. The signature is formed within the space of culturally approved possibilities. It is proven that in Zalyvakha’s oeuvre, changes in the signature reproduce stages of identity transformation within his own artistic text. For the artist, the change of signature was neither accidental nor an unconscious stylistic transformation. Rather, it was an inevitable consequence of a value-based choice, the result of the interaction between individual thinking, stylistic influences, and cultural context. Taken together, this allows his authorial signature to be defined, from an art historical perspective, as an integral phenomenon of self-presentation through art. An additional finding is the identification of later markings of his paintings with the signature «O. Zalyvakha».
Keywords: artist’s signature, signature, symbol, sign, visual art, self-identification, Opanas Zalyvakha, Sixties movement, nonconformist artists.
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