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Artwork
Louisa Elderton
Portrait of Zhanna Kadyrova at “Palyanytsia,” hosted by Galleria Continua in Venice, 2022. Courtesy of the artist.
Think about a desk laden with loaves of fluffy bread, sliced and seemingly nonetheless heat, solely to seek out that they’re actually made from stone. Palianytsia, which means “bread” in Ukrainian, was the title of Zhanna Kadyrova’s 2022 pop-up exhibition with Galleria Continua in Venice. There, she confirmed a collection of river stones formed and lower like bread (when mixed with salt, a conventional image of hospitality in Ukraine). But, initially of the Russo-Ukrainian Struggle, the phrase palianytsia, which Russians battle to pronounce, turned a signifier of one thing else. “It turned a shibboleth, distinguishing pal from enemy,” mentioned Kadyrova. The artist gave all the gross sales proceeds from the present to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, supporting artists on the entrance strains.
Regardless of the conflict starting in 2014 with the Russians annexing and occupying Crimea, the artwork scenes in most Ukrainian cities remained vibrant and thriving, with the capital Kyiv a energetic hub for most of the nation’s artists. That each one modified in 2022 with the full-scale invasion, which brought about the whole shutdown of galleries and establishments alongside a mass exodus of artists. Now, three years later, areas have slowly reopened and lots of Ukrainians have returned.
The previous two weeks have seen important developments associated to the Russo-Ukrainian Struggle, together with an astonishing showdown between Ukrainian president Zelensky and U.S. president Trump within the Oval Workplace. Now, the U.S. has suspended all army help to Ukraine. Because the worldwide scenario shifts quickly, how are Ukrainian artists faring three years into the full-scale invasion?
Zhanna Kadyrova, set up view of “Palyanytsia,” hosted by Galleria Continua in Venice, 2022. Courtesy of the artist.
Some, like Kadyrova, are coping with these themes of their work: For the previous three years, Kadyrova has engaged completely with the thought of conflict. Having initially fled Kyiv for the Transcarpathian area in west Ukraine, the artist’s studio is now, once more, primarily based within the capital metropolis. She advised Artsy, “I’ve made a principled determination to not depart for any residencies as a result of I need to stay on the heart of occasions and witness the whole lot firsthand. I also have a moratorium with my gallery on promoting pre-war works to make sure that folks’s consideration stays targeted on the conflict.”
It’s not simply artists: Establishments within the area have additionally taken daring steps. Björn Geldhof, creative director of the PinchukArtCentre, defined that in early 2022, the non-public museum made a “shift from institutional work to virtually activist work…we understood how a lot impression we may have by means of tradition,” he mentioned. In his work as a curator, he has sought to unfold the message of Ukraine’s battle and focus the world’s consideration on its struggling. For example, Geldhof curated a touring exhibition of Kadyrova’s work, which traveled to Galerie Rudolfinum in Prague in 2024, and included the sculpture Pictures (2022–23), a collection of tiles punctured by gunshots.
Portrait of Bjorn Geldhof. Photograph by Oleksandr Piliugin for PinchukArtCentre. Courtesy of PinchukArtCentre.
Kateryna Lysovenko, set up view at “PinchukArtCentre Prize 2025” at PinchukArtCentre, 2025. Photograph by Ela Bialkowska, OKNOStudio for PinchukArtCentre. Courtesy of Pi
Within the museum’s present exhibition “PinchukArtCentre Prize 2025,” work by 20 shortlisted Ukrainian artists aged 35 or youthful is on view. Included is Tamara Turliun’s Shkurynka (Crust) (2025), a collection of sculptures that double as big cocoons with small floor tears and perforations, evoking a way of transformative metamorphosis in defiance of the violence bearing down on Ukrainians. “It’s by means of [artists] that we have now a voice, and it’s their voice that we attempt to amplify,” mentioned Geldhof.
A particular recognition within the present honors Veronika Kozhushko, an artist who tragically died in a Russian missile strike on the jap metropolis of Kharkiv. Such veneration retains the reminiscence of Kozhushko’s work alive, with the establishment displaying its solidarity with and respect for artists who exist in significantly harmful situations and but proceed to dedicate themselves to their artwork. Geldhof underlines that whereas Kyiv stays “a energetic metropolis, I used to be not too long ago in Kharkiv [which] is far more durable…it’s actually on the sting of life and loss of life…the urgency to supply, to make, is extraordinarily excessive.”
Tamara Turliun, Shkurynka ( Crust ), 2025. Photograph by Ela Bialkowska, OKNOStudio forPinchukArtCentre. Courtesy of PinchukArtCentre.
Although an estimated 7 million Ukrainians have fled, males aged between 18 and 60 can not depart the nation beneath martial regulation. Lina Romanukha, a cultural supervisor, artist, and curator nonetheless primarily based in Kyiv, advised Artsy that many male artists have consequently remained in Ukraine, however that there was a “large motion overseas of feminine artists due to security measures.”
This motion, in some circumstances, has been happening since earlier than 2022. For instance, multimedia and efficiency artist Maria Kulikovska, who was born in Kerch, Crimea, was displaced by Russia’s annexation of the area in 2014. At the moment, she had an exhibition within the jap Ukrainian metropolis of Donetsk, the place the Russian army destroyed her sculptures. In the beginning of the full-scale invasion in 2022, she moved to Linz, Austria, for a residency. Her subsequent exhibition “My Physique is a Battlefield” at Francisco Carolinum acknowledged the stress in her scenario. The present included casts of her personal physique, described as “the battlefield by which usually ambivalent feelings emerge and wrestle with one another.”
Portrait of Rita Maikova. Courtesy of the artist/ Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery.
Ukrainian artist Rita Maikova Zaporozhets was in Sri Lanka when the 2022 invasion of Ukraine began. Since then, the painter has lived for stints in London and Madrid earlier than settling in Barcelona together with her husband and 1-year-old child (she confirmed Artsy the view of Gaudi’s Sagrada Família from her balcony over a Zoom name). By stark distinction, in her hometown of Kherson, the place her 68-year-old father nonetheless lives, Maikova mentioned that her “home is located simply in entrance of the river, on the entrance line the place the Russians are bombing. They destroyed the roof, so [my father] rebuilt it and continues to reside there.”
Maikova’s profession is taking her world wide: Her current exhibition at Volery Gallery in Dubai, “Inner Guide,” included the oil-on-canvas portray Feminine secret circle (2024). It’s a surreal scene depicting mercurial figures dancing at night time in a circle paying homage to Henri Matisse’s The Dance (1909), suggesting the adaptive energy of individuals and the spirit of coming collectively regardless of the darkness. Later this yr she’s going to present with Kristin Hjellegjerde in West Palm Seaside. And but, Maikova mentioned, “After almost three years of a brutal conflict, I’m nonetheless renting a studio in Kyiv. I haven’t been there in all this time, but I can’t appear to let it go.”
In accordance with artists there, the artwork scene in Kyiv is burgeoning as soon as once more. For instance, artist Polina Verbytska not too long ago returned after initially transferring together with her household to Lithuania. She advised Artsy, “Even earlier than the conflict, I believed that the artwork scene in Kyiv was one of the crucial fascinating in Europe—characterised by high-quality, highly effective artwork that’s usually created by the artists themselves with none institutional assist. And now, after three years of conflict, I see no decline.” In emigration, she principally targeted on creating drawings and small sculptures, together with I keep in mind (2023), by which a fleshy determine is carved in half and mutilated by a splintered piece of wooden. Now again in Kyiv, Verbytska has transformed her studio on Oles Honchar Avenue right into a small gallery. She highlighted how in Kyiv, “some folks left, some returned, however life is bustling, and folks can not assume solely about politics.”
Whereas many cities and artwork establishments in jap Ukraine have been devastated by conflict, others within the west, together with Lviv’s Jam Manufacturing facility Artwork Centre, have been much less impacted. “Being positioned within the western a part of the nation, we have now much less frequent missile or drone assaults,” mentioned Bozhena Pelenska, director of the Jam Manufacturing facility. Nonetheless, Pelenska mentioned that its programming nonetheless acknowledges the “excessive degree of vulnerability in society, [people] who went by means of the battles or assaults as civilians.” As such, she focuses on themes of trauma and resistance as a response to the urgency of present occasions.
Portrait of Polina Verbytska. Courtesy of the artist.
Polina Verbytska, I Bear in mind, 2023. Courtesy of the artist.
Pelenska is at the moment planning an exhibition that features a work primarily based on Leonardo da Vinci’s bridge design by Kyiv-based artist Oleksandr Burlaka. “The picket beams lean on one another, and stand on the floor, however when taking out one of many beams, the entire construction falls aside,” she mentioned. The work, she defined, speaks to the interdependence of Ukrainian society, and the necessity to depend on others.
Because the world waits to see how peace talks develop over the approaching weeks, Pelenska concludes that artists have finally fought for survival “in small actions, in assist to others, in proactivity, in overcoming worry, or in expressing [and] standing to your beliefs.”
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