I am Ukrainian artist Oleksandra Malyshko, and here is my story.

In the spring of 2022, I was painting landscapes while my country wouldn’t stop exploding. The world is no longer as we all observed it before. At this unsettling time, Ukrainian artists are going through an internal fight with reflexivity during this troubling moment.

I’ve been through a lot of unsettling obstacles and had the experience of the inner struggle of “being human”. I ask myself, what do I want to record: the world that “collapsed”, “exploded”, “the beautiful past that we all had yesterday”, “the experience of the horror we lived through today”, “the terrible things that are happening to us now”? 

I was painting icons in the evenings when I could hear air raids in my city apartment. Despite their flaws, they were truthful. They had potential. Now I want to paint something more hopeful, I’ve decided to use light and gentle colors to represent it better. I wanted to paint pictures that would be a reflection of happiness, joy, and everything you could find in the “ideal world.” I thought about it a lot and decided that I could do it with color – bright lemon ochre.

I was inspired to paint before the bombing started. After that, the painting was suspended and I did not understand how to continue doing it in such conditions. It’s like closing your eyes, covering your ears, forgetting everything as if nothing happened and nothing exists. I couldn’t be in the city anymore, I wanted to find a new meaning, I was looking for the meaning of life in the country during the war.

I was finally able to collect coins for canvas and continue painting. Prior to that, I could easily afford it, just like a loaf of bread. Now, Every day, I have to decide whether to buy food or go without, a paintbrush or food, a canvas, or my daily necessities.

It is in such moments of reflection that new ideas are born. Please, have a look at my fully realized, dreamy painting and let me know what you think.

More info: Facebook

I am probably a “fan of colored clothes”

Please do not worry. My house is intact it was not damaged, so everything that was before the war remained. My things, clothes, and kitchen utensils, I have enough. I can wear my clothes. The coat I’m wearing is about 20 years old, but I love it very much, the yellow color cheers me up.

Having lost inspiration, I did not know what to do next.

I wanted to finish this painting but I didn’t know how. I probably needed to pause and be distracted by other things. I did not lose hope. I decided to take the painting with me when my friends offered to go to the river together. It seemed to me that it was in nature that I could find meaning, rethink, and find something personal.

Personal

To sense life and express it as a personal message via painting, I sat close to the stones and wandered on the grass with the painting in my hands.

The painting

Finally, the picture is painted, it is impossible to add more lines and I am glad.

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