Road to Vyriy Painting

Who am I As for all Ukrainians, my life was divided into “before” and “after”. Who I was before 24.02.2022? Our life was like a run. We were rushing and speeding up more and more. In the run, we were wasting emotions in a hurry, (?). Suddenly, I realized that I can’t keep going like that. I have to stop. Stop and look closer. Closer to leaves ornaments, to the sky, to stranger’s faces on the streets. Look closer into myself. Things that were inside of me, things that worriedand perturbed me had to break free. I had to see those silver threads that connect inner me and outer world. I had to stop and try to breath with full lungs, tasting ever inhale. Look up to the sun and see how it looks inside my window and smiles. I had to see my path. Accept it and walk through it. Even if you fell the horror. And the pain. And there’s no way you can predict what’s waiting behind the corner. Every person perceives world in their own way. There is a difference in the way how we hear the same sounds, feel the same smells, and see the same colors. Some of us lets world to get through themselves, some live parallel. For me world is multicolored. Sounds have color, smells have color, people that surround me also have their color. I want to speak up about it, sometimes even scream about it. My inner “nespokiy” (unrest, inner anxiety) – it’s a need to have a dialog with world, look and speak closely, feel its breathing. To look into very attentively. To see. To touch. To absorb the smell. To breath. And to reflect it on all on the canvas. To be honest, I didn’t have an aim to change the world, make it better, make it cleaner, lighter, less complicated. I didn’t see myself as a Liberty who is leading the people. I didn’t want to create art on the complicated social topics, to rethink and analyze revolutions, global warming, problem of overpopulation, religions, inequality, I simply didn’t want to be extra modern, actual and popular. I just wanted to be. Here and today. Person can’t be in peace with the world if it is not in peace with itself. My art was, firstly, my way to reach peace with myself. There is nothing scarier for me than a mutilation of a soul. Black scorched desert in which no sprout will grow, no rain drop will fall – soul won’t be touched by tenderness, joy, love, quite sorrow. There’s no place even for hate and fury. Only emptiness. That’s how I see a complete hell. Emptiness. That is what I stand against with every piece of my soul.