5 Paintings I’ve Made Inspired By Different Stories

In my country, there is a legend about the night of Ivan Kupala. It used to be a summer holiday evening and a mystical night. The bottom line: on this night a fern flower bloomed and whoever finds it could become a person whose wishes will be fulfilled. That night a fern flower blossomed and whoever found it could become a person whose wishes would be fulfilled. On this magical evening, young girls and boys performed rituals in the water and lit fires through which they floated in pairs. The girls wove flowers into a wreath and decorated their hair with them. At the end of the evening, the girls gave these floral decorations to the water and watched to see if the decorations would drink from the shore and in which direction (this meant that this year the girl would get married and from which direction the groom would be). The tradition of flying through the fire in pairs is associated with trust. If the couple holds each other's hands while jumping over the fire, their relationship is strong and reciprocal. If their hands did not stand the test, it meant that the couple did not have trust and understanding. A lot of interesting things happened that night, people enjoyed the rest, had fun... and there was always a person who went to look for a fern flower to make their dreams come true.

As a child, I often heard my grandmother tell me about her childhood. About the changes that took place in society. Famine, revolution, war, typhus so many different tragic milestones in the history of the country intertwined with my grandmother's personal life and worldview. But the strongest was the manifestation of life, family stories, and creativity. In my fantasies, I tried to imagine the place where my grandmother's childhood took place. It attracted and transformed my imagination... I transferred these reflections to this picture as much as possible.

Karnaukhivka is an iconic place in my childhood and creativity. It was there that as a small child I conducted my first experiments with colors, with the sap of plants... I drew with the help of plants and their coloring properties. There I made my first conclusion that the fruits of cherries, mulberries, herbs, etc. can be used in my creative search. And at the same time, my imagination was influenced by the landscape... its color was constantly changing and blurring in space. Hills, mountains, ravines, lowlands, and river floods up to the horizon reflected the breathing space of the earth. Something very simple, only a couple of trees and the feeling of hills remained in my memories, which I recorded.

This is a continuation of the story about the place where I live and the night of Ivan Kupala. I allowed myself to draw what is happening in space in this area (Kodak, Dnipro) during the night.

There was a period in my life when everything was very bad: finances, opportunities, prospects. The feeling was that my country was driving me out of my home. it was as if space was squeezing me out. In society and space, all conditions were created for all living things to gather the most valuable and leave the territory. This picture shows the strong reflections on this. In my imagination, even trees left their roots and went on a journey to other worlds in search of a better existence.