Art For Ukraine

I’ve been living in Ukraine over the past year and the events of the last seven days have shaken me and my wife. Luckily the city we live in, Ivano-Frankivsk is in the West of Ukraine and is not an area that has suffered any fighting yet.

Our initial reaction to the invasion was one of shock and horror, explosions and sirens woke up early on Thursday morning and the next couple of days were a blur of scrambling to ready documents and plan a way out. As Liuda is Ukrainian we were waiting for an answer on whether her visa would be granted for her to allow her to enter the UK. We had applied for this before the invasion, but we didn’t get an appointment to submit documents until the weekend after the war began.

As we saw the brave actions of Ukrainians and the community spirit which rose up around us, we were able to find ways to help - sorting and gathering donations for fighters and refugees. I managed to find time and energy to create an artwork to help raise awareness and raise from friends, family and people who follow my art in the UK. ‘Freedom’ is a personal piece, Liuda is my wife and Ukraine is my home now. The people fighting here are protecting their homes and their right to be free, as well as my own.

It’s now one day since I made the print available and donations started coming in, we’ve raised about £1500 and we were out all day finding what the collections centres needed.

To help our efforts to raise money for Ukraine click here