In May this year, a 200th anniversary of the birth of American poet Walt Whitman was celebrated. During this time, his poem have significantly changed the world poetry, even though at the beginning his compilation "Leaves of Grass" didn`t draw much attention. Whitman predicted that when he approached/ turned to the poets of the future: "The main I’m expecting from you". He masterfully played around with the extents: from an ant and a grain of sand to something on a cosmic level; from a simple name to continuous filled poetic lines of free-verse; from a fleeting moment, when he is the one to write a poem,  to the poetry of all generations. Whitman has been always thinking about interlocuters. He wrote he will engage in dialogue even with a random passer-by if he will address Whitman.

To congratulate Walt Whitman with his birthday, female and male artists of Aza Nizi Maza studio has addressed him in spring. They started drawing pencil portraits of American poet after Gogol`s 210th anniversary, which studio has celebrated by posters exhibit at Mykola Kolomiets workroom, the tutor and the founder of the studio. Kolomiets said: "When I started reading Whitman`s poetry to children no one knew him. While I was reading the poems, children were drawing his portraits. Because Whitman is a very visual poet and he has a lot of objects references, it worked out." Consistently, the poet`s beard got covered with woods, and his head became to look like a cliff in the mountains. Whitman-cloud had a beard made of rain, and Whitman-peasant had one made of wildflowers. He was routinely saying goodbye to his muse and touching the planets with his index finger, knowing they will meet again soon.

Whitman writes that the great poet is created not by style, but by freedom of speach. He himself was trying to loose the excess style, so it would not become a barrier between him and the world, both big and small, because the world and the poet are the one.

The desire to reach this unity is contained in the method that has been chosen by the students of Mykola Kolomiets. The portraits become a base for the next transformations under the influence of different situations and spaces. In his poems Whitman wrote that he was totally ready to give up everything but diversity of his faces. These multifaceted characters of Whitman become the theme of the exhibition.