Ukrainian artists escape war, auction paintings to support their home

For more than a week Ukrainian artist Iryna Kalyuzhna and her 10-year-old daughter hid under their house in Kharkiv, as Russian bombs rained down on the city.

The two were able to escape. The first painting the artist completed after she made her way to Europe was an image of her daughter, curled up in the cellar. The true nature of the moment is belied by the peaceful beauty of the pose, the daughter’s golden hair spread over a harsh cement floor.

This weekend the artist will travel to Atlanta from her temporary home in the Netherlands, for an event intended to help her homeland.

Called Path of Resistance, the fund-raising event will feature an auction of works from 14 Ukrainian artists, 10 women and four men.

Their show is sponsored by a U.S.-based non-profit called Art Territory UA that has staged similar auctions around the world.

Credit: Art Territory UA

Credit: Art Territory UA

The Art Territory UA website says “We are US-based ethnic Ukrainians who want to give Ukrainian art a voice because we know that art is louder than bombs.”

Proceeds from the sales will go to local organization HelpingUkraine.US and to support the artists and their families in Ukraine.

The show will feature 30 works by contemporary artists, and will be staged at the Alpharetta real estate offices of the Tirone & Weaver Team, at 31 Church St., in Alpharetta.

It will include work by an Atlanta artist, Kateryna Ivonina, a transplant from Ukraine. Paintings from contemporary artist Anna Moskalets, of Kyiv, who fled to Berlin, will also be part of the auction, and Moskalets plans to attend the event.

Olga Gorman, a Ukrainian transplant, now living in Decatur, is part of the leadership team of Art Territory UA, and has helped to coordinate the art auction.

Credit: Art Territory UA

Not all of the artists in the show have left Ukraine. Kostiantyn Lyzohub, one of the male artists represented in the auction, will not be at the event, said Gorman, because he has joined the Ukrainian resistance.

“He has family, he has kids and he wants to protect his land,” she said. Lyzohub’s work at the auction is from earlier years Gorman said, adding that he has expressed the desire to create new art, “But he can’t because he is fighting.”