The white cross as seen on Ukrainian Tanks becomes a symbol of protection, leaping through the canvas itself, 2023, Screen prints and Paste ups on ink.
Detail of distorted print of a blown up apartment block, 2023, Screen print on acrylic spray paint.
Draping exercise over the work, 2023, Fabric and canvas with paste ups and acrylic spray paint.
Work in progress, figuring out composition of works, 2023, Fabric and canvas with paste ups and acrylic spray paint.
My emails during the invasion of Ukraine, 2023
Every time I think about my Ukrainian heritage, I don’t know how to feel: pride or loss?
Living and working through the invasion of Ukraine over a year on I am still so detached from the violence and the only memories that replay are of shining streets in Kyiv, now all bombed out. My work aims to answer, how I as an artist can depict conflict without trivialising it.
Through quasi-accidental process, my work has transformed into repetitive layers of screen prints, spray paint, stencils and traditional embroidery and textiles. As the eye moves through the drop sheet canvases and camouflaged drapery, traversing imagined explosions and distorted remnants of culture the work becomes more than an emotional connection to the war. It becomes a reminder of the effect it has, even on the other side of the world.
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Solomiya Sywak is a Ukrainian Australian artist based in Sydney studying Honours in Visual Art after completing a Bachelors in Visual Arts and Politics. She blends painting with warped personal archives to explore the intersectionality of these disciplines, especially the duality of her cultural identity in the current and ongoing context of the r*ssian invasion.