Editor’s Note: Yelena K. is a pseudonym for the artist. Consequence Forum has agreed not to disclose the artist’s real name for fear of persecution for speaking out against the war in Ukraine.
Only through art can I express the wound from the war within me.
—Yelena K.
Yelena K. is a Russian citizen living in Ukraine. At the age of twenty-three she left her Russian homeland to join and marry her Ukrainian husband. They met a decade prior on social media, but the broken relationship of their countries in the aftermath of the 2014 attacks on Cremea, Donestk, and Lugansk made it difficult for them to be together.
Today, in spite of war, they live together in western Ukraine, in the city of Khmelnytsky. A city deluged with Ukrainian refugees from Kharkov and Mariupol. Yelena is a self-taught painter and until the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 she painted in a realist style and from observation. Needing to express her feelings of anguish, betrayal (by her birth country), and pain over the war, she felt it necessary to abandon her previous manner of painting for a more abstract, expressive and emotive way of working.
Important to her process is the inclusion of found materials—detritus from the war. She states, “ . . . the idea is to create an eternal from a disposable.” One can imagine the works featured here being made between air raid warnings alerting the artist and everyone in her city to take shelter in corridors of their buildings. A number of the eight works featured have been sold to a charity organization in Ukraine that assists Ukrainian soldiers who return from captivity.
Danger, 2022, mixed media on cardboard, 60 x 38 cm (23 1/2 x 15 inches)
“A phosphorus howl, a deadly sight. People who suffered from such an explosion of such bombs died in terrible agony, everything that phosphorus fell on burned to the ground.”
The Window Broke, 2022, mixed media collage on cardboard 15 x 15 cm (6 x 6 inches)
”After I painted this picture, my friend from Kharkov told me how a window was broken in her house. A fragment flew into the apartment and broke through the closet. The towels that were in it did not survive. No harm done.”
I’m at a Friend’s Wedding, 2022, mixed media on cardboard, 16 x 17 cm (6 x 61/2 inches)
“This picture is dedicated to a solemn event—the wedding of my best friend. My friend lives in Russia, after I moved to Ukraine, we began to communicate less often, but we still remain friends. On this cardboard canvas, joy and lightness are depicted in the upper part, a kind of portrait of guests at a wedding. And below are me and my husband; we are lying in the corridor during an air raid as I look at photos of my friend from her wedding.“
Liberated Babies, 2022, mixed media on cardboard 40 x 50 cm (15 3/4 x 19 1/2 inches)
“In memory of the children killed by Russian terrorists.”
Salt 2, 2022, mixed media collage on cardboard salt packaging, 32 x 37 cm (12 1/2 x 14 1/2 inches)
“Ukrainian salt used to be made in Soledar [Ukraine]. Now this city is under occupation, and the plant is destroyed. Salt is no longer produced there.”
Genocide/Bucha, 2022, watercolor on paper, 42 x 30 cm (16 1/2 x 11 3/4 inches)
“When Ukraine found out about how Russian soldiers mocked and executed people in the Kyiv region, they cried for several days for all the people.”
In Fragments, 2022, mixed media on fiberboard, 50 x 70 cm (19 1/2 x 27 1/2 inches)
“Everything, both inside and outside, consists of a mixture of fire and blood. Wooden fragments symbolize the lives of people who will never be the same and whole again.”
Restoration, 2022, mixed media with broken plate fragments on panel, 17 x 16 cm (6 1/2 x 6 1/4 inches)
“Buildings keep history in themselves, Ukrainian houses now have a history with pain inside, with blood in their walls. And when we rebuild our cities, they will become beautiful again, but the memory and pain will remain in them forever.”