A Ukrainian-Israeli painter famous for images of her childhood in Kyiv has painted the ongoing war in her homeland.
On February 24, Zoya Cherkassky-Nnadi says she felt as if her own memories were being invaded as she watched news coverage, from her home in Israel, of Russian missiles exploding and tanks moving on the Ukrainian capital. Shortly afterward, the artist began painting the Russian invasion of Ukraine in images that reference her famous Soviet Childhood series.
Cherkassky-Nnadi told Israeli media that she had been in Ukraine just four months before the invasion to look for landscapes and familiar scenes that she could use in future paintings depicting her childhood.
The Israeli-Ukrainian artist had relatives inside Ukraine when full-scale war broke out and, after waiting to see if the situation would improve, her sister eventually decided to flee the country to Moldova. On March 4, the artist's sister, two nieces, and two great-nieces arrived in Israel.
Now the Israeli-Ukrainian is raising money for the Ukrainian Red Cross through sales of her art, and said in a recent Facebook comment "my body is in Israel but I’m in Ukraine."
Cherkassky-Nnadi was 14 when she left Kyiv with her family for a new life in Israel just two weeks before the U.S.S.R collapsed in 1991. The artist has since been based in Berlin and Tel-Aviv.
Although her series on Soviet childhood is ongoing, Cherkassky-Nnadi says she hopes the related work depicting the war will be a short-lived project.
