Olexander Klimenko | Virgin and Child - SOLD

OLEXANDER KLIMENKO
Virgin and Child, 2022

Tempera on wood from ammunition boxes abandoned by Russian soldiers on battle fields near Kyiv and rescued by Ukrainian deminers.

61 x 36.5cm | 24 x 14.4 in

Motherhood during the war is one of those topics that cannot be discussed without emotions. No one knows why it is so necessary now - for mothers to lose their children. It is impossible to find any justification for this, this is boundless pain, which only the Mother of God, whose Son was brutally tortured and killed, can fully understand and share. What cannot be expressed in words is reflected in a symbolic image. The words fall silent and the timeless tragedy remains, but through it, with the light on the clothes and in the faces, the unthinkable joy of the Resurrection emerges.

© Olexander Klimenko

Icons on Ammunition Boxes
From 2015, Ukrainian artists Sonia 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.