Donetsk. Do you remember what happened during the occupation? How did you leave the city? What were you doing before the invasion in 2014?
Everything happened too fast. I was only 15 years old and studying at an art college in Donetsk. At the time of the outbreak of events, I was taking my exams, and a lot of very important things were happening for me, and suddenly there were tanks, fighter jets and everything I had already acquired in a suitcase. It turns out that if you try hard and have a limited amount of time to make decisions, you can fit your whole life into one suitcase. I still have that suitcase, by the way, and the number of things that are important to me is now measured by the main parameter – whether they fit in the suitcase or not. I’ve been drawing all my life, so when the question of where to go to university and what career to choose came up in Year 9, I already knew the final answer. I started preparing for art school and became an apprentice to an artist. The following year I prepared for the entrance exam and helped him paint. My first and last lesson in Donetsk was memorable for the words of our teacher: «I don’t know if we’ll see each other next year, but take care of yourself and believe in yourself».
The next day I woke up for the last time in my bed, in my house, and went to the train station with my family. The day after we left, we were told that a section of the railway had been blown up during the night. For me it was an illustration of the phrase «there is no going back».
How did you feel when you left home?
Like everyone else who was leaving, we just thought that we would all be back home in time for the start of the school year. «We’re not staying long», «It’s only for a few weeks», «We’ll be back by winter at the latest» – when an IDP from Donbass hears these phrases, he will only smile bitterly. At the time, we all thought the same. My classmates and I had the feeling that we were just going on a summer holiday. We really wanted to believe that. Ridiculous as it may sound, I was only 15 at the time and I didn’t understand, and my parents didn’t explain what was happening.
How did you know that painting was your thing? How did your story begin?
I have always painted. When I was a child, I didn’t draw in sketchbooks, I made copies of them. I would put in a sheet of paper and redraw the picture. That’s how I got sent to art class at school. I was too young for a full art school. But then, in that art class at school, I drew such a picture that I believed I could go to an art school. Each time my work got better. Now that I am an adult artist and art teacher, I realise how much my mentor helped me back then, but he did everything he could to make me believe in myself and keep going in that direction. Then my father told me once: «Make your hobby your profession and you will never have to work». I listened to him, and that’s how art became a part of me. After art school, I went to an art college and then to the art academy.
Can you remember your first serious work?
It’s hard to say which of my works is serious. For whom? For me it will be one painting, for someone else it will be another. I can judge which is my favourite, which is more difficult than the others, which is the saddest, but not the seriousness of the painting. But I remember my first painting very well. My teacher and I decided that I could already paint with oil on canvas. We thought for a long time and decided on a still life with a stuffed owl, wine bottles and playing cards. It’s my first painting, and it’s already one metre by one metre. It’s still waiting in Donetsk for me to come and frame it and hang it on the wall.
As for the painting I consider the most serious, it was my first painting for a volunteer drawing. At that time I painted a still life in the style of the Little Dutch, depicting a skull with pomegranates. This picture had a coded meaning, because there were not only edible shells on the table, but also live shells. A branch of viburnum completed this still life.
I do not only paint in oil. I am mainly a graphic artist. I make posters about Donbass and picturesque graphic landscapes of my native industrial region.
As far as I remember, you have a series of posters about Donbass. Tell us about them.
It is a series of landscapes that would convey the feeling of Donbass. I chose charcoal and black pastels as the main material for these drawings. What else should a charcoal pile be painted with? I think it’s quite symbolic. The first in the series of posters was an architectural landscape with the Donetsk Metallurgical Plant. It is one of the oldest enterprises in the south-east of Ukraine. I painted it more from memory. After the first poster I couldn’t stop and a whole series was born. I draw and show everything I want to tell. Everyone will find something for themselves in them. Some will respond to a particular landscape or illustration.
This is what happened to one of my favourite posters. 30 minutes after I posted a new poster, a volunteer wrote me a personal message saying she wanted to buy it. So I drew her an enlarged version of the poster and framed it. When we met in Kyiv for a cup of coffee and to hand over the poster, I asked her: «Why this particular work?»
She started to recite a poem – «A man came out of the house». She is a volunteer from Chechnya, and she really responded to the work, which shows a man standing in front of a huge door in a beam of light, with a suitcase in his hands. This poster gave the series its title – I Have No Home.
As soon as I get an inspiration, I immediately paint a new piece.
It so happened that I had to draw some of the posters from scratch because the first 5 originals were signed by Kirill Budanov and given to different teams.
My friends and I decided to use my posters for raffles to raise money for the collection.
It was a lot of work.
How long does it take to make a painting?
Painting takes anywhere from a day to a year or more.
I have a painting that I started when I came back to Ukraine. But I still can’t finish it. It just doesn’t work. For me it is a very subjective parameter.
It’s very subjective, it all depends on the story. For example, I have a piece that I have not been able to finish for a year. And then there are posters that are drawn in 15 minutes.
End of Part 1 of the interview.
Translator: Ivan Chepaykin
