You probably follow the news worldwide and know that the fighting in Ukraine did not begin in 2022; it started earlier in 2014. Since then, many people have suffered. Men of different ages and specialties stood up to defend their homeland. You may have also heard that during that time, the army was almost disbanded, and it is difficult to say if it still exists. So, writers, musicians, school teachers, artists, programmers, engineers, directors, drivers, and many others volunteered to defend the country. These are ordinary people, like your neighbors. Sometimes they were super-famous people in their creative professions. Many of them have since passed away.

I remember how my friends who were going to join the army discussed with tension that they would have to shoot during the battle. And it’s not shooting at a paper target – it’s shooting at people. There were different feelings. At that time, these were feelings that could not be explained; it was impossible to shoot at a living person. But later, after all the horrors that the attackers committed on our land, they were no longer considered people.

These were the opinions of people in peaceful professions, the vast majority of whom had never held a weapon in their hands. At the same time, the two peoples were so intertwined that almost everyone had relatives abroad. At any moment, you could be shooting at your relatives who were real enemies at that time. Do you understand what I mean?

Years have passed since then, and the situation has not improved but, unfortunately, has become even worse. It is no longer difficult to divide people into “friends” and “foes.” If a person comes to kill on someone else’s land, crossing the state border with weapons, it is no longer a matter of conscience. This is the enemy.

From time to time, volunteers bring in various pieces of debris, for peaceful people to transform the essence of these things. Perhaps we need this transformation too, for our psyche. I used to want to paint an icon on the box. But after the experience you see in the photo, I don’t want to touch any such objects anymore.

Painting copies of my paintings on these remnants of death made me feel very bad. I started to feel depressed. My creative energy seemed to vanish for a long time. I began to fear that I would never be able to create anything good again.

It was a test for me. I considered myself too peaceful of an artist. Even when we were being bombed, with no light, no communication, not even air sirens turned on due to the power outage, I painted in the dark. I painted our happy future for all Ukrainians, our peaceful land washed by rain, our blooming gardens. Perhaps this is how my mental defense mechanism worked.

With various reflections, I finished the last coat of paint with a firm decision not to ask volunteers for such things anymore. This experience of transformation was too much for me to bear, to endure, to analyze myself, and to move on.

What has become of it and how much the original meaning of these objects has changed is up to you to judge.

I managed to change the visual appearance of the objects, but I know exactly what they really were, and it didn’t make me feel any better.

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