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Lesya Stankevich
UKRAINE
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“In today's realities, art can become a new universal language of communication.”
Lesya Stankevich, an artist from Odesa, transforms gingerbread dough and sugar glaze into symbolic paintings, blending confectionery and art. She got her master's degree in architecture from the Odesa State Academy of Civil Engineering and Architecture. However, Lesya diverged from her initial path, co-founding the URURUR art gift brand, and discovered her true passion in art.
My Heart | Other
NFS
Can the human heart contain a building? This composition was born after one of the air strikes at a residential building in Dnipro.
It's not about one destroyed residential building (although that's enough). The fact is that such rocket hittings happen every day. It is impossible to get used to it. And every such hole becomes a wound in someone's heart.
Lesya’s artistic journey began as a confectioner, but over time, she turned the creation of gingerbread into the creation of full-fledged symbolic paintings. Such an unusual material allows her to create a unique style impossible to achieve with other mediums, emphasizing the fragility of today's world—as fragile as Lesya Stankevich's gingerbread art.
Kinzugi | Other
NFS
8.7 X 6.1
Kintsugi is a Japanese method of repairing ceramics, which does not aim to hide the place of the fracture, but, on the contrary, turns the "flaw" into a decoration.
Sometimes something "breaks" us. We may seem broken and imperfect, but in our imperfections the most important and beautiful things can be hidden. Thin golden lines are a symbol of the reproduction of the new life.
You can throw away the "broken".And you can turn the broken into something new. Something beautiful.
Her life changed and continues to change every day, and at some point, she realized she wanted to create something that would allow her to share her experiences with others. She believed that the language of feelings comes to the rescue when other ways of communicating your vision to the world do not work.
“Today's life of the artist is such that the challenges of wartime, ordinary human questions, and feelings are tightly intertwined.”
Lesya Stankevich lives in Ukraine; her experiences during the full-scale war shifted her priorities from being co-owner of a gingerbread workshop to volunteering. This is how all Ukrainians live. They cannot separate those things and postpone something until better times come. After all, Ukrainians have to fight for their lives, at the same time understanding that they will not have another life. And they want to continue living here and now.
Dragons are Different | Other
NFS
15 X 11
Different feelings are born in the heart, and all these feelings move us.
Some of them we are used to consider negative. Anger is often considered a negative feeling, a kind of dragon that eats you from the inside. But anger can be different: This picture is a visualization of "joyful anger": irony towards oneself, towards the surrounding circumstances. This is the Dragon, which does not destroy us from the inside, but on the contrary, allows us to overcome fear in a moment to move forward.
Dandelions are amazing flowers that can grow in almost any conditions. They make their way through dry ground, rocks and even asphalt. They grow up, bloom with bright yellow lights, and then turn into fluffy clouds with seeds. The wind carries seeds further so that the dandelions can grow again and continue to delight the world with beautiful yellow lights.
Sometimes it seems to us that our world is destroyed, but the sprouts of life are able to break through and bloom even under such conditions
Hope | Other
NFS
15 X 11
Living in different contexts and experiencing different life experiences, it becomes difficult for us to hear and understand each other. Lesya’s paintings are her way of sharing her own experience, telling the story of living her life and her feelings.
“People need to communicate with people; it expands our worldview and strengthens us.”
“Art becomes a kind of guide that helps us realize and express our own feelings when it is not possible to tell about something with the help of usual words.”
Lesya's paintings are about how the present changes us and, at the same time, about how we can influence it to change. They are about inner experiences and feelings that change us every day. And about how we can change the world for the better using this experience.
It will be dawn | Other
NFS
11 X 7.5
The land of Ukraine was wounded by shell fragments. Fields are littered with ammunition fragments and embedded with unexploded shells.
But despite this, flowers continue to grow stubbornly in the fields, as a reminder to us that manifestations of life find a way to sprout in any conditions. And every dawn gives us hope and strength not to give up, but to stubbornly grow through the ruins of what was destroyed.
We constantly lack emotional resources and understanding of where to get energy and how to feel happier. Lesya believes that today we lack tools that help us realize and live through our own emotions, as well as tools that help us share this experience with others.
Syrens | Other
NFS
7.1 X 8.7
"Sirens" - when the air alarm starts outside my window, 4 sirens start screaming at once. They sound like iron birds, their shrill "singing" notifies either of danger or that the danger has temporarily passed. I seem to be used to this sound, but every time it makes me jump: every time the scream of sirens sounds a signal that in a few minutes fragile life can turn upside down and change forever again.
According to Lesya, feelings and their living through (in particular, living them together with someone) are a very important part of human life because this can help us better understand each other, dream better, invent, and create new things.
This picture reflects an Image of a soldier's wife, who will never wait for her beloved. And all she had left were his belongings. Thus, an ordinary backpack turned into a military one, and a bright room turned into a dead end with a broken floor, as if the ground had gone from under the woman's feet.
We would like it not to happen. But today it is part of our shared reality.
Grief | Other
NFS
10 X 11
“Sometimes we forget about the importance of feelings in our lives, but by cutting off this part of life, we forbid ourselves to desire, and then we cannot understand what is broken inside.”
Minefield | Other
NFS
6.9 X 4.7
In the summer of 2023, my feriends asked me to go to Kherson to take a small parcel to the military. Summer heat, the blooming fields outside the car window... Roadblocks and buildings destroyed by the rocket hittings are already an everyday part of the landscape.
And little red signs "Caution, mines!" on the roadsides, which reminds of what happened here quite recently. And about the fact that even if the flowers around you continue to bloom - the war is still an arm's length away.
Her artistic process is a journey of self-discovery and emotional expression. By sharing her emotions, she creates a safe space for others to process their own feelings.
Have you ever experienced a state of single-mindedness? This is a state of movement and confidence which comes when I know exactly what I want, and why I need it. When I'm sure something needs to be done, to be created.
For me, this state is a sign that you have already felt the way to your goal and stepped on it. And when the first step has already been taken, you want to move further and further. Because the goal you see on the horizon is meaningful to you and worth your efforts.
Goal | Other
NFS
21 X 16
She says that sometimes there is a feeling of total loneliness like you alone have such a range of powerful emotions that are difficult to explain and show to others. But it's not just you. There are many people like you who feel this way.
Where the inner fire comes from |Other
NFS
8.1 X 6.9
The frase on this painting is translated as: "When you have something of yourown, you have no need in searching amoung the others".
“In fact, there is a lack of understanding that there are others like you and that you are not alone.”
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