Kateryna
I’m from Ukraine. I paint because it gives me meaning of life and the opportunity not to think about tomorrow, which I cannot plan. Art for me is cathartic, an unconditional freedom in the moment.
I've never been an artist, I'm self-taught. I'm a psychologist by education. I hated art lessons at school. I got bad grades in drawing! I've been painting for a year since moving to the UK. The weather inspires me. I can paint the sun for myself to keep me warm.
Most of all I like to paint portraits of people who fascinate me with their spiritual qualities. I have included here portraits of a Ukranian poet, Anna Akhmatova, and the Princess of Wales as the seven year old Kate Middleton. It’s interesting that I’m drawing her for a reason. She and I not only have the same names. I found an interesting coincidence. She was born on January 9th, and I was born on January 19th. I'm a big fan of English monarchs. As a child, I wrote a letter to the Queen and received a notification with the seal of Buckingham Palace that the letter had been delivered. I keep this paper in Kyiv. I hope my brother manages to find this and give it back to me in England. England has always been an unattainable childhood dream for me, and the British are the most beautiful people in the world.
Also, besides portraits, I like to paint nature and birds. I do not like to paint still lifes. I love moving lives, I hope that my art will continue to develop as long as I am alive and that no war will stop me. I can't stop and hold myself back.
I love expressionist artists. Expressionist artists have sought to express the meaning of emotional experience rather than physical reality. My favourite representatives of this direction are Amedeo Modigliani and Edvard Munch.
Art is the most important medicine for the world. Art is creation, and the opposite of art is destruction. Art takes different ingredients without judgment: pain, despair, hatred, passion, and then transforms them, dissolves them, neutralizes them.
I have created a portrait of the Ukrainian poetess Anna Akhmatova who lived through a terrible life. Her husband was shot and her son was arrested. Her poems were condemned and censored by the Stalinist authorities, and she is notable for choosing not to emigrate and remaining in the Soviet Union, acting as witness to the events around her.
When I painted her, I understood that despite the pain and despair, I need to find a warm light inside myself and follow it.
I read this verse as a prayer every time I want to cheer myself up.
I’ve learned to live now wisely and simply,
Look to the sky and pray upon my knees,
And wander quietly outside each evening
To beat the useless feeling of unease.
As burdocks rustle in the gully in the distance,
And yellow-crimson rowan clusters swell,
I’m writing happy verses on existence,
A fleeting one, but gorgeous just as well.
I come back home. The fluffy cat will wake
And lick my palm while purring rather sweetly.
And on the turret of the sawmill by the lake,
A light is lit just then as if to greet me.
But, now and then, the calm is cut once more —
A crying stork lands on the roof, returning.
And if you happen to come knocking on my door,
It seems to me that I would not discern it.