When Varvara Logvin left Kyiv for western Ukraine in the early days of the war, life in the city was still relatively calm.
When she returned after three months, the familiar and beloved landscapes of her city were destroyed by tanks, roadblocks and anti-aircraft guns.
Logvin (38), owner of a family business and an amateur painter, reacted to the new reality in an unusual way.
With paints and thin brushes, she settled in Independence Square in Kyiv and slowly, with delicate brush strokes, decorated the irons with traditional flower paintings.
"The paintings are a symbol for me, a symbol of the protection of Ukrainian culture, and also of Ukraine itself, which is a strong and growing nation, despite the war," she says today, on her first visit to Israel on the occasion of the opening of a special exhibition in which she is participating.
"A symbol of the protection of Ukrainian culture".
Varvara Logwin in action, photo: courtesy of the artist
She is standing in the courtyard of the Land of Israel Museum in Tel Aviv, holding a thin brush between her fingers, smearing the paint with delicate touches on iron pillars that were placed there especially for her.
"This painting is like a meditation for me, a way to deal with the war and stay alive," her voice is quiet.
"Ukraine is my country, and I sacrificed a lot for it. My son, 11 years old, moved to the Netherlands with my ex-wife, and after much deliberation I decided to stay in Ukraine with my partner. It was the hardest decision of my life, but I felt that my country needed me as I needed it I go to visit him every few weeks and return to Kiev, to the combat zone, because that's where my life is.
"When I chose to paint on the iron, I showed that we can make beautiful things out of ugly things. When people see it and smile, I know I did something good for my country."
Varvara Logwin in Israel, photo: Yossi Zeliger
"You can't stand by"
Logwin is one of 12 Ukrainian women creators, whose works are on display starting this week until February 2023 in the exhibition bearing the difficult name "We Have No Future."
These are works - photographs, paintings and performances - that express pain, the pain of war.
With some of the artists the relationship was disrupted because of the conditions.
Some of them preferred to communicate by email because they knew they would not be able to commit to a certain time of conversation, but all of them found a way to express the pain, both private and national, through art - rough metal pillars with small and delicate flowers on them, a photo of a young woman with her eyes tightly closed and deep lines of worry on her forehead , or a painting of a mother and son standing in each other's arms on the balcony watching the tanks rumbling down the burning street.
"The idea to curate an exhibition as a tribute to the Ukrainian people was spontaneous, but evolved into documenting complex war stories and describing life in Ukraine from the artists' point of view," declare curators Susan Landau and Svetlana Rheingold before the exhibition's opening, together with the museum's chief curator Dr. Debbie Hershman. "I felt that in the days These cannot be stood on the sidelines, who must make a voice, and an art exhibition is the way to do that," emphasizes Reingold.
"You can't stand by."
Curator Svetlana Rheingold, photo: Ran Hillel Photography
The curators independently approached Ukrainian women creators, and received a surprising response.
"The request received a quick response from the creators. The difficulty was to be in continuous contact with the artists, because of the difficult physical conditions in which they found themselves many times throughout the months of preparation for the exhibition.
"Every exhibition is a challenge - especially an exhibition that requires a special effort to bring works from war zones. The exhibition seeks to talk about the strength of coping compared to the destruction and loss of war, and to make a female voice heard in days when the woman's voice is silenced. This is the voice that is given up almost immediately.
"Throughout history, the documentation of war has mostly been entrusted to men. We hope that our exhibition, which presents works by women artists, will be able to point to the importance of the female perspective, as well as the vitality of the change in consciousness involved. The artists participating in the exhibition are re-examining their status as women and as citizens. Their work gives strength To the voice of the Ukrainian women, no war can silence."
The work of Zoya Cheraksky, photo: courtesy of the artist
Memories of Kiev
"The paintings shown in the exhibition were part of my way of dealing with the shock of the war," says Zoya Cheraksky (45), the Israeli protest artist who immigrated from Ukraine about 30 years ago.
In her normal days her paintings are humorous, sharp and critical, and also include works based on memories of her childhood in Kiev.
With the beginning of the war Cherkasky took her childhood memories one step further, and painted the destruction prevailing in her childhood city, through wounded men in a playground or an injured accordion player lying on the floor next to the instrument.
"Part of my way of coping with the shock of the war."
The artist Zoya Tsaraksky, photo: Galia Mor Yerushalmi
"Over the years, I would come to Kyiv and walk around my childhood neighborhoods to collect material for my humorous series. When I suddenly saw in the media pictures of Russian tanks entering the northern neighborhood where I grew up in Kyiv, I felt that the war was entering my paintings. It was clear to me that I had to do something.
A work by Zoya Cheraksky from the "before and after" series.
Courtesy of the artist,
"I painted a girl standing next to a window, through which you can see a man trying to stop the tank. I promoted the painting on Facebook, and sold it to a person who proved that he had made a donation to an organization that helps Ukraine. In the first weeks of the war, I painted what I felt, and I described the entry of the Russians into Kiev. These are the paintings that are displayed today in the exhibition, and their goal is to raise awareness of the war and show the difficulty that exists in it. As someone who lives in Israel, I believe that Israel can do much more for Ukraine, such as helping families to get here, and I hope that it will do so."
From the exhibition, photo: Yossi Zeliger
on broken glass
In another part of the exhibition stands a close-up photo of a young woman.
Her face is furrowed with worry lines, her gaze penetrates through the lens.
The photo was taken in shelters set up in Lviv, by Alana Sovac (42), an artist and curator at the National Art Gallery in the city.
Sovac and her partner, Helen Jagir, document the refugees' stories of abandoning all the lives they knew in favor of an unknown future.
"The war took away my memories."
Artist Elena Sovets, photo: Vyacheslav Poliakov
"Since the beginning of the war, we have all undergone a change, and are looking for a position where we can be as efficient as possible," Sovac explains.
"If before the war I looked for depth and meaning in the ordinary things of everyday life, now my approach to photography is more documentary. I document the present, because history develops here and now. The war took away my memories, and now I am filled with the stories of others to create memories."
In the months that have passed since the beginning of the war, Sovac has heard quite a few stories that have influenced her work, such as the confession of a woman from Mariupol, who said that for her the war was about broken glass - and silence.
"She told how she walked on shards of glass in complete silence, and heard the sound of the glass shattering under her feet so loudly as if it pierced the body. She remembered how she entered a nearby house where all the windows were broken, and when she called out to one of the people in the house there was no echo, Because the sound passed through the glass and did not meet any obstacle.
The work of Elena Sovac, photo: courtesy of the artist
"Another story that touched me was about a guy from the Kherson region, what broke him was a pear tree. When the Russian invasion began, he was released from prison and went to guard a house in the village. He made homemade sharpened knives, and explained that the knives were not only meant to protect him but mainly to hit back. In the yard of the house he found a pear tree and took great care of it, even wrapping it in clothes to protect the trunk. The guy said that he did not break when the Russians came in and was ready to fight, but when a shell hit the tree and the yard was covered with leaves, he fell to pieces and began to cry. He had been through so much, But what broke him was the pear tree.
"What hurts me the most is the saying that comes up again in conversations with the Ukrainians, according to which there is no future. That we are like trees that have been uprooted and scattered everywhere, and what we have left are pieces of memory of what was before the war."
The work of Elena Sovac,
The work of Elena Sovac,
The work of Elena Sovac,
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