How to be an immigrant artist? When the ground beneath my feet becomes merely a memory, every gesture becomes a root, reaching not downward but upward - between the interstices of sky and memory.It is the making of one’s own path between past and future, between Ukraine, which I carry inside me, and the world where I learn to be myself anew.In this groundless state, I find support in the visualization of trees as a symbol of resilience and renewal. Surrounded by pure gold and platinum, they acquire a sense of timelessness, sacralizing the present… With gratitude to the past and hope for the future….
Resilience is the ability to reassemble oneself from fragments, shaping them into new forms and meaning.The war walks beside me, quietly, the shadow of my identity.And it is this very shadow that urges me to grow stronger.It is a choice — not to let pain turn into silence, but to transform it into a rhythm that leads me forward.To make it a wellspring of strength.
Resilience is a series of paintings that explores and celebrate the strength, identity, and persistence required by immigrants, and especially women. With this series, I hope to inspire positive change, promote understanding, and encourage a deeper appreciation for the sources of strength that come with embracing a new home and cultural identity.
Living in Iowa and Nebraska, I am beginning to integrate the landscape of the Midwest into my work, where trees emerge as a central motif, symbolizing renewal and rooting with my new homeland. One of the questions I'm currently researching: How does a Ukrainian sensibility interact with the America to create a new perspective? How my Ukrainian eyes perceive Middle America?
Distance does not shield you from pain - it only alters its form.
To endure war from a distance is like holding a torn thread, uncertain if your touch can join its ends.
Art, in such a state, calls for a metaphysical gesture, where hope takes root through the space of loss.
Triptych Altar of Hope combines paintings based on actual news photograps of shelling of Ukrainian cities.Within this framework, I seek to record my reflections as an artist who was forced to leave Ukraine, but remains inextricably linked with the ordeal of my country through a shared artery of pain. Therefore this series focuses not only on the pain of the present, but also hope for the future – and documents that process.
In my work, building imagery through layers of intertwined lines created a kinetic effect of uncertainty and instability as well as unity and immersion as I searched to integrate polarities such as hope and despair among a shifting multitude of immeasurable and elusive horizons.
The Age of Melancholy explored the forces of increasing individualism coupled with the loss of spiritual resources, creating an existential vacuum that has become a large-scale phenomenon, exacerbated by the pandemic. In Ukraine, prior to the present military conflict, this state was intensified by a sense of constant pending threat - an oppressive tense uncertainty.