Uliana Krekhovets specializes in reverse glass paintings like this one of the crucifixion (bottom half of image), a variation on a type of icon found in village homes. To paint on the flip side of a glass panel in the traditional way, beginning with the finishing details and working backward, demands the kind of time and attention the Ukrainian artist could not find after the 2022 Russian invasion of her homeland. She turned to quick sketches to vent her feelings in this turbulent time. “Drawing became a form of salvation for me,” she told the century, “a daily emotional practice, and a way of documenting reality.”
During the first year of the war, Krekhovets created more than a hundred sketches in what became a visual diary and way of “rethinking the sacredness of everyday life.” When Kyiv was under attack early in the conflict, she invoked Michael the Archangel, the capital city’s patron saint, to lead its defense. In a second quick sketch, the Virgin Mary weeps over the captured city of Mariupol and the children killed in the Russian bombing of a theater where they had taken shelter.
Krekhovets’s simple line sketches have had an unexpected resonance, finding their way to church leaders in both the Vatican and Istanbul. She sees the images as a way to preserve the historical memory of the Ukrainian people. “A quick, intuitive sketch,” she says, “as an immediate and very honest emotional reaction, makes it possible to touch upon extremely complex topics like life, death, loss, and how we survive all this, seen through the prism of faith in God.”
