This Ukrainian resilience series is part of the Bearing Witness project. The art pays homage to the resilience and beauty of the Ukrainian people. It is an honoring and echoing of their art and culture which is now under attack along with their land. There is a rich visual history of bright colors and natural images in the the Ukrainian artistic sensibility. There is also a youthful fun quality of observing nature in a direct way and painting on everyday objects. To echo this, these pieces are combinations of collage and paint.

The simple design guideline for this first piece is the yellow and blue stripes of the Ukrainian flag. The collage was made with pieces of discarded water colors found in my studio, old art calendars and pieces of high intensity color samples. I included numerous flowers, as Ukrainian art is filled with flowers, and pieces of Chagall paintings, since he was from that part of the world and his imaginative images speak of this playful sensibility. The piece is  34” X 53”.

This next piece is a combination of acrylic paint (the blue background), pieces of paper cut from seed catalogues and yellow rice paper for the petals. The center of the sunflower is made of many small pieces of pictures of grain. The stalk and leaves of the flower are made from pictures of lettuce and cucumbers. This is a nod to Ukraine’s important role as a bread basket for the world. The piece is 24” X 36”.

How evil came into the world

Taken from The Magic Egg and other tales from Ukraine, retold by Barbara J. Suwyn

Long, long ago, before there was an earth to stand upon and before there were people to remember and tell, there was a vast aching darkness. The darkness was surrounded by water and above the water flew two spirits—one made of light, the other made of shadow.