Art and War in Ukraine. Part 7. Photographer Alexandra Bolotina

Alexandra Bolotina is a portrait photographer from Kharkiv Ukraine. I think her work as a family photographer is her superpower - the way she makes people interact with each other and the camera, and how she organizes space around them. In her photos, Alexandra creates a whole little world that belongs for just a little bit of time and space only to these people. 

Alexandra's photos were bringing her international awards and recognition and her clients were spread around the world way before the war entered our lives. Now these people are even more dispersed - but are still in touch with Alexandra's projects. 

When the war began Alexandra was in Kharkiv and for some time photography was substituted with organizing help for people and animals. Food, medicine, and support in evacuation. Then she was organizing people who wanted to help as well. Then there were projects helping soldiers in the front, people recovering in the hospitals, and orphans. Projects that Alexandra curated were built around concrete things that were needed by real people. And she documents it in her photos: what was done, and how, who received this help - we see these people in action. 

There is an ongoing production of adaptive clothing for people injured in the war. 

Food and medicine to a village that was just liberated and is standing in ruins with people living in rubble. Wheelchair and medicine for a child with a devastating disability. The list goes on and on. And parallel to all of that photography returned to Alexandra's life - and how! 

Portraits of her fellow volunteers, animals, and families. Wonderful portraits of the city of Kharkiv - I love seeing it through her eyes - with scars but with so much beauty. 

Photo projects - from a series created with AI on a theme of Ukraine to documenting the damage done by russian strikes to projects-posters. She writes little stories that come with the photos, they are translated by Facebook quite well. That is the best way to see her latest work. Or on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexandra.bolotina 

To support her projects here is PayPal info: bolteni@gmail.com Please put "Support Ukraine" in the message field  or specify if there is a particular project that you want to donate to.    

Alexandra's art is filled with beauty. Her life and work were completely broken by this war yet she creates art every day and it is filled with the unstoppable will to overcome the evil. 

Sneaky Art Podcast: A Conversation in Two Parts

In April 2023 I spent a little over 3 hours talking to Nishant Jain also known as a Sneaky Artist. We covered many topics - from my experience growing up in Ukraine while it was still part of the USSR,  sketchbook preferences, drawing underwater while scuba diving, books, nature, learning and re-learning languages, Ukraine, russian aggression, war and not war in conversations with my parents. I feel like we covered so many things that we barely touched them and I don't know about Nishant - but I left with a list of questions for the next conversation!

We also drew each other while we talked:

If you want to give it a listen - here are links to Spotify. However this popular podcast is available on all the platforms so by searching with my name Nina Khashchina and SneakyArt you will find it.

Episode 64: Growing up in Ukraine with Nina Khashchina

Episode 65: War and Not-War with Nina Khashchina on Spotify

Nishant has a newsletter on substack and you can learn more about these episodes  and listen to them right there:

Ep 64 - Growing up in Ukraine with Nina Khashchina

Ep 65 - War and Not-War with Nina Khashchina

Art and War in Ukraine. Part 6. Illustrators Telling Stories

I've been thinking about how to share the war-time works of illustrators and comic book artists from Ukraine for some time. The issue of course is that of language - many things would be lost without the text. Then two comics appeared in the New Yorker and New York Times - both by Zhenya Oliinyk and I decided to start there and just gather some of the comics that stayed with me the most and share them as is - in hopes that pictures will help with the missing language bits.

So here you are - Six Ukrainian illustrators that are creating art about the war and whose work I wanted to share. 

Zhenya Oliinyk

For me, the weirdness of the shapes, deceptive simplicity, and lack of facial parts that would be expressing emotions make the subjects of these drawings only more real and close. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CqkHdl3oVJB/

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cqm7V_LIJ0I/

Anna Ivanenko

I noticed the range of textures overlapping colors first. Then I noticed the faces and hands and it just hit me. I think about those faces and hands often. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/Co6uEt0ts56/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CfoHfWkNuNj/

Jenya Polosina

Jenya Polosina and Anna Ivanenko run Studio Seri/Graph.

Jenya's works speak to my sense of being simultaneously connected and disconnected to the horror and truth of what is happening in Ukraine. For me, grainy textures and distorted views make it possible to continue looking at images so filled with pain.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CpCcA3pMmr_/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CilM-vTsm0b/

Julia Tveritina

For me, these illustrations feel very personal. Julia lives far away from Ukraine now but her pain is very visible even when from a great distance. I love unwrapping her detailed, layered, and very colorful illustrations made based on photos and accounts of her family and friends in Ukraine. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CpAWfVFSPKG/

Mari Kinovych

Illustrations are made with straightforward colors, dynamic lines, and interesting points of view. For me, they are bursting with feelings. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CliW48jKwtL/

Potapenko Iryna

A series of colorful and sincere drawings about actual everyday life during the war. Done with lots of humor, kindness, amazing optimism, and unstoppable conviction that Ukraine will prevail against evil. The series of "Stories from the Basement" became a book:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cp9zVWdgUzL/

Art and War in Ukraine. Part 5. Artem Azarov

Artem Azarov was an artist in Kharkiv. All the images below are his works - his self-portraits, sketches of Kharkiv, still lifes, him working on his diploma painting. You can see more on instagram and on his site: https://arteme.art/

Since 2017, he has carried out 6 combat deployments to Donbas - defending Ukraine. His military call-name was "Artist". He died at the age of 26 in March of 2022 - while defending his country. 

You can read more - in English - about his life and works here: https://arteme.art/en/biography-3/

Art and War in Ukraine. Part 4. Mistograf - a family of urban sketchers from Kharkiv.

"Mistograf" - is a family of architects and urbanists. Tanja and Jaroslav and their three kids (Yulia, Olya, and Marko) were living in Kharkiv, Ukraine. When the war with russia began on 24th of February, 2022 they, together with their parents, spent 5 days hiding in the basement of one of the buildings in the center of the city. They left Kharkiv for Lviv on a train that was filled to the brim with people and pets. Since then they made a camp many miles away from home in a tiny village in the Mountains of Ukraine. From there they travel and tell stories about different cities of Ukraine, how they lived before and how they live during war.

Despite everything that is happening in Ukraine this family kept drawing through whatever was happening to them. They were drawing while hiding in the basement (when Kharkiv was shelled many times a day). They were drawing through evacuation and then moving from place to place. Without much materials at first but never stopping they drew parts of Ukraine as they moved through and then after they settled a bit, they started traveling around Ukraine sharing their stories with others in the form of bi-monthly zines/newspapers. 

I love that kids contribute to these publications and maps are my favorite images for a long look but even from a quick flip through the pages you get to know both the place and the family a bit. I enjoy popping up on their youtube where you can see some videos from the travel and events and how Tanja and Jaroslav create works together. Mixture of drawings from life with cartoons and comics, use of text in sketches, interesting notes about working on location, interviews with locals - all can be found there. Also, Mistograf's work is an example of how people brought their Ukrainian language to a new level and they inspire me in their writing too. 

They have a whole series now - covering the cities of Chernihiv, Zhytomyr, Sumy, Odesa, Ivano-Frankivsk, and small cities of the Lviv region and there will be one about Kharkiv - but that is a story for another post! 

Right now you can read these in Ukrainian but there is an English version for Ivano-Frankivsk and others are in the works. 

You can learn more about this amazing family of artists and sketchers at the English version of their site:

https://www.mistograf.com/en - you will find ways to support them via PayPal or Patreon (and on the site as well). 

Art and War in Ukraine. Part 3. Aza Nizi Maza - art studio.

Aza Nizi Maza is an experimental art studio in Kharkiv. This is a group of artists working with people of all ages and a wide range of special needs and the work that they do was very interesting and inspiring for quite a few years now. The studio is originally located in a bomb shelter that was left after WWII - it used to be a place for art studios for many artists where I used to do to see "real artists at work". It was a dark and strange place but slowly some great people turned it into a "cave of wonders" and Aza Nizi Maza took it to a new level. 

Many people went to this shelter when the war started. 

I don't know the whole story but when the bombing became a new life for kids in Kharkiv, Aza Nizi Maza went to the subway where many kids in were living. And they started making art with the kids. Bringing their ability to support kids and give them power, materials, and encouragement to draw their hearts out. And that is priceless! 

They slowly covered subway walls with papers and covered them with artworks and words, and then they went beyond. 

Today the studio is back to regular classes. And lots of kids are drawing there. They are making some bags with the kids' artwork, organizing exhibits, and making sure that amid the horror of this war there is light and a place where people are welcome to come and work on their art, have some warm food and some light. It is now a safe and colorful place in so many senses. You can support them by donating to their paypal or purchasing bags with the artworks made in the studio.

These are works created during the war:
The text is in Ukrainian and says: "Let there be no death today. Not for Mom, not for Dad, not for me, not for my goldfish" - here is a link to this work on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CbelAzANLN3/
 

This one says: "We will win and make everything better" 

Here is an example of the bags: https://www.instagram.com/p/CgWCOFvIRPe/

Art and War in Ukraine. Part 2. Artist - Fanny Lechevalier and Varvara Logvyn.

Continuing with the topic of art and war in Ukraine. 

French artist Fanny Lechevalier creates a series of works where she combines famous paintings with photos from the war in Ukraine. She makes these astonishingly seamless combinations that make two worlds collide. For me, these works highlight a big part of my life now - the impossibility of what is happening with the reality of it and with the existence of the things beyond this. I suggest browsing through Fanny Levhevalier's instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/fanny_lechevalier_l/

I took a few screenshots from her instagram to share some of my personal favorites:

Ukrainian artist Varvara Logvyn (Варвара Логвин) uses traditional folk motives to paint anti-tank defense hedgehogs placed all over Ukraine. Washington Post ran an article about her work in August of 2022: "Ukrainian artist turns antitank ‘hedgehog’ into symbol of resistance". And in her instagram she shares instructions as to how to paint on the hedgehogs and you can see the process in her video (I always enjoy looking at how people work, share their process!). 

For me in this simple act of making the world around you a little prettier, a little better - despite everything that is happening, out of whatever is available, over whatever circumstances, in time when thinking about making pretty pictures seems futile and out of place - but still making them - this is one of the reasons why I believe that Ukraine will win. Because I see so many people showing this wonderful human quality - of this and for this - to continue doing this - Ukraine will win. 

Following screenshots are from Varvara Logvyn's instagram: https://www.instagram.com/varmural/

Art and War in Ukraine. Part 1. Street artist - Banksy and Hamlet.

The topic of art and war in general and art and war in Ukraine in particular is something I think about often. And since a lot of that thinking is prompted by some interesting examples I thought that I will collect them here for me to go back to and to share them too. 

I will start with two examples of street art.

The most recent one received a lot of light in the press lately - Banksy confirmed seven murals that they created in Ukraine. This is a screenshot of the article with my favorite of the murals - an elderly gentleman taking a bath despite the war raging around. You can see many of the murals at the link to the full article below: 

https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2022/11/banksy-works-ukraine/

For me the power of these images comes from their  locations - they are painted on the buildings ruined by war or include a war attribute (two kids riding an anti-tank obstacle defense - see the article above). And I think that this particular image is unique in the line of wall graffiti that Banksy created over the years. And I am just plain grateful for the support. And the joke of a little kid throwing down a big martial arts figure. Aga in - see images in the article above.  

There is a rich culture of murals in Ukraine and Kharkiv has a wide range of street art by various artists. I've visited some during my visits but not all (and saw way more than this site shows). 

But one artist (from Kharkiv) has a legendary status among street graffiti artists - Hamlet Zinkovskyi (known as Gamlet). His work has important text elements that make it even more interesting for people who can read it - but less accessible on the world stage. However, I am a big fan of including text with images and enjoyed finding his little gift sprinkled in the city center a lot. Here is one of the war-time examples: The text says: "your blood can fight in the war too. donate."

Screenshotted image from this link: https://www.instagram.com/p/ChaUhthj3iI/

In Hamlet's instagram account you will see many works created after February 2022 and with the war, he, like many other russian-speaking Ukrainians switched to the Ukrainian language and continues to work in Kharkiv and is quite prolific. 

The text below says: "the keys are missing their doors"

Screenshotted image from this link: https://www.instagram.com/p/CgmaJ3LNtBf/