War pictured with soil and clay

New solutions and approaches often emerge in new circumstances. The creativity of Ukraine's defenders is going off the charts. Oleg Bazylewicz (senior lieutenant, a deputy commander of artillery battery - but artist, writer and interpreter in the pre-war life), who has been at war since 24.02.22, recently invented a new painting technique - painting with soil and clay from trenches and ashes from firewood. He says, this idea came to him when his battery position was flooded with rain and he tried to wash his hands having trying to wash his boots - and then he realized that it was not mud, but paint!

The sticky black soils of the Ukrainian steppe, and heavy terracotta clay are unusual and difficult materials for sketch painting,. But they also have their advantages. Some interesting and expressive nuances, conveyed with the help of ashes from a bonfire add an unexpected and emotionally powerful effect - we see gray rain and, gray grass...

The other materials sometimes used in these paintings, are: fragments of chalk and limestone found in the trenches, dry yellow petals, green leaves, soot, etc. – only natural materials from the front line, and no usual paints at all.

These sketches successfully convey the everyday atmosphere of war – pretty tough, often eerie, andб at the same timeб optimistic. Steppe landscapes, fields and forest lines, the images of military equipment and soldiers are saturated with these feelings.

The war is tough, but the Ukrainians well win. We wish the author further creative success, good luck and a safe return home, a good exhibitional future for his works, and victory to Ukraine