On April 15, 2024, the opening of a personal exhibition of painting and graphic works by Taras Cherepenko, a student of the 10th grade of the municipal institution "Maximum Lyceum" of the Kropyvnytskyi City Council, "ArtMix of Taras Cherepenko" was held in the O.O.Osmerkin Art Memorial Museum as part of the artistic project " Gallery of children's art" with the assistance of a communal institution "Inclusive Resource Center No. 1" of the Kropyvnytskyi City Council for World Autism Awareness Day.
    This day was established by the decision of the UN General Assembly in 2007 and is one of the seven official health days. Every year on April 2, actions are held as a sign of support for people with autism, a disorder of the nervous system that makes communication difficult. Autism is incurable, but with timely diagnosis and corrective intervention, a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can be adapted to life in adulthood.
    Here is Taras Cherepenko with a special vision of the world and its expression in his own work. Therefore, his private teacher in fine arts, Yuliia Malezhyk, a candidate of pedagogical sciences and a member of the National Union of Artists and Masters of Folk Art of Ukraine, initiated the exhibition of the talented young man in the museum in order to introduce him to his works and thus demonstrate how the realization of creative potential provides opportunities to socialize.
    The exposition of the exhibition consists of more than fifty painting and graphic works of the young artist, created by him during the period of individual training in 2020-2024 under the guidance of Yuliia Malezhyk. These are colorful still lifes, characteristic portraits of friends, original drawings of patriotic themes and extremely interesting plot works with the characters invented by him who travel through time and get to know the world and themselves in it.
    Taras Cherepenko was born on January 4, 2007 in the city of Kropyvnytskyi and since childhood has been actively developing in various fields - he is fond of visual arts and music, successfully studies German and English, and enjoys attending classes in the sports section. According to his mother Olha: "He began to show his abilities in fine arts very early, but there was no qualified teacher nearby who, taking into account Taras's peculiarities and his unconventional thinking, would have helped in his early development in this field. Since childhood, he dreamed of creating his own animated series in the future, which he completely invented, created the script and drew its characters."
    His classmates, friends, teachers came to the opening of Taras Cherepenko's exhibition. Experienced teacher and artist Yuliia Malezhyk introduced her student and talked about his creative achievements: "Taras came to me as an interested and disciplined student. Considering its features, I myself was interested in working with it, it was such an experiment and something new in my pedagogical activity. And now, he is making progress and taking prize places in International and All-Ukrainian competitions in various types of visual arts. And Taras does not stop there, in his plans to continue his studies at the faculty of animation graphics in Ukraine or abroad."
    Welcoming words were delivered by the director of the "Maximum" lyceum, Nadiia Kravchenko, and the head of the city's Inclusive Resource Center No. 1, Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences, Olena Doroshenko. And the amateur artist Alina Davydenko came to the museum with her brother, who is friends with Taras, and gave everyone present a flyer with information about autism, emphasizing the need to help people with ASD adapt in society.
   From the museum, Taras received a gift of paints and brushes with the wish to become an animator and create author's cartoons with amazing characters, and an exhibition booklet prepared by scientists, which he gladly signed, giving it to all who came to his personal opening as a commemoration of the art festival.