TO PARADISE
The exhibition opens with a painting made just days before the full-scale invasion. The work There Will Be No Palms in Paradise became the starting point for the idea of working with wallpaper further. I dedicated this painting to regions of Ukraine (mainly the Left Bank), which I had actively studied while documenting their architectural landmarks and monumental art. At the center of the composition stands the image of the Palace of Culture “Metallurg” in Dnipro, next to which I placed an imagined fountain, surrounded by wildflowers breaking through the asphalt — plants typical of the region. Flanking this scene is a colonnade that imitates the kind of composition often used in wallpaper designs.
These spatial decorations, once symbols of a dream about an ideal place, today recall the loss of access to Crimea, the Sea of Azov, the steppes, and eastern Ukraine. They are a fusion of my personal memories and the collective pain of loss, layered one upon another. I recall a familiar process from childhood, when my grandmother would redecorate her space with wallpaper every few years. Working with this material in my artistic practice, I do not know what condition that same apartment is in now, in a city occupied since 2022, who lives there today, whether the wallpaper is still intact, has burned, or has been painted over.
I aim to create a space for reflection on how war transforms not only the physical but also the emotional landscape, reshaping our sense of home, safety, and the ideal. After the occupation of my hometown, Dnipro became a second home for me and my parents. Dnipro is a fortress city, a refuge, and an important cultural hub. This exhibition also comprehends the personal and collective experience of displacement, loss, and newfound attachment to place.
Over the course of several years working on this series, I have turned within it to different themes: from the lost cultural heritage of the Crimean Peninsula to ecological problems on the shores of Donetsk region. Beginning with There Will Be No Palms in Paradise, where I wanted to ironically comment on ideas of paradise with palms on distant islands, I arrive at a declaration of love for certain places that have been lost forever. When thinking about wallpaper, I am not analyzing the image itself but rather looking at it through the prism of memories of the apartments where it remained. In doing so, I let go of irony in my statements, leaving space only for love.
Photo: Olya Vasylets