Olexander Klimenko | Guardian Angel – SOLD
$2,500.00
OLEXANDER KLIMENKO
Guardian Angel, 2021
Mixed media on a fragment of an ammo box
40 x 35cm | 16 x 14 in
Human life in time of war depends either on chance or on the Providence of God, which is even less understandable to people. What does protect a person under heavy artillery fire? Why do some survive in situations where it is impossible to survive? We involuntarily think about this and are no longer so skeptical about the idea of the existence of a personal guardian angel who does not forget a person and takes care of him amid all the horrors and vicissitudes of war. Depicted on camouflage, the guardian angel, as well as the camouflage fabric from which the military uniform is sewn may, in some unknown way, make us invisible to the enemy looking through the optical lens of a sniper rifle … The camouflage spots of the background were painted with an elaborate silver-gold pattern , the exquisite flickering of which takes our imagination into the unsteady otherworldly mystical world …
© Olexander Klimenko
From 2015, Ukrainian artists Sofia Atlantova and Olexander Klimenko have been using wooden fragments from ammunition boxes abandoned by Russian soldiers on the battle fields in Ukraine to paint icons and donating all sale proceeds to mobile hospitals that provide urgent medical care to wounded Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. Since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine in late February, 2022, their work remains more relevant than ever.