Embrace Love, Not War: Stand With Ukraine

This is my tribute to the people of Ukraine, whose lives have been shattered and forever changed by the Russian invasion that started on Feb 24th, 2022.  Since then, the world has watched the unfolding devastation and destruction of Ukrainian cities at the hands of the Russian regime.

When Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered a special military operation to support ethnic Russians in the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk at the beginning of the war, the EU denounced this move and Putin’s declaration of these areas as independent republics.

Although Ukraine has been an independent nation-state for the past 30 years, Putin denies the legitimacy of this statehood and claims that they are an important part of Russian history and culture.

Since the war’s outset, towns and cities in the path of the advancing Russian tanks and falling missiles have been destroyed.  Some of the hardest hit cities include Mariupol in the South, and Kharkiv and the capital city, Kyiv, in the North.

Heartbreaking images of decimated apartment buildings, houses, historic buildings, businesses, schools, maternity wards, and cultural institutions have flooded news channels and newspapers, reminding onlookers of the catastrophic effect of war.    

Because of this Russian assault, more than 4 million Ukrainians have fled to neighbouring countries to seek sanctuary and more than an estimated 6 million Ukrainians have been displaced within the country itself.  Ukraine’s government enacted martial law, requiring men between the ages of 18 and 60 to remain in the country to defend it against Russian attacks.  

As a result, countless scenes of fathers saying goodbye to their children and wives at train and bus stations have dominated the media and underscore the reality of this mass exodus of Ukrainians.  These images, in particular, were a reminder of how life can change in an instant.

I am extremely grateful to Andrey Andriyenko, for giving me permission to use his powerful photograph of a couple embracing at a railway station in Kramatorsk, before the woman departed for western Ukraine.  I was touched by his generosity and his simple request to share his name in the hopes that if he never sees it, that others will be able to know about him.  My prayers are that he survives this war and is able to continue to touch the world with his compelling photos.

I was affected by this photo because of the intimacy of the couple’s embrace, which is the focal point of my painting.  The emotion and love is palpable and the position of the soldier’s hands entwined on the woman’s back and their noses pressed against one another’s faces, seem to perfectly capture a couple breathing each other in during what could be a final goodbye.

I took the liberty of inserting faint images of children’s faces and hands pressed against the train windows in the background, to emphasize how the war has separated families, and forced many women and children to leave the only homes they have known to safeguard their lives.  The top left window of the train shows a young girl forming a heart with her hands, mirroring the emotion being displayed between the couple below.  The second window is faceless but a single child’s hand pressed on the pane reinforces the heartbreak of goodbyes.  The last window on the right hints at the arm of a mother who is pressing her younger child’s hand up to the window to say farewell to a loved one somewhere outside of the viewer’s vision.  All of the images in the windows were inspired by other photos taken by Andrey Andriyenko. 

I used my own artistic license to add drips of paint coming off the blue train to mimic a mournful Ukraine.  The blue drips form a puddle resembling the Ukrainian flag on the bottom left of the composition and personify a train that has had the emotion of its passengers seep through its walls and start to pool on the platform.  The paint on the train turns into tears to reflect the struggle that exists between not wanting to leave your country but not having any choice.   

My intention with this painting is to express my heartache over the devastation that Ukraine is experiencing and to remind viewers of the human cost of war.  As a global citizen, we have a responsibility to speak out against oppression, hate, and tyranny in all of its forms and support people who are being subjugated to these ill forces.  My painting is a loudspeaker for my own voice and to those who are voiceless:  “Embrace Love, Not War:  Stand with Ukraine”.