FAU artist speaks out against Ukraine war through self-portait

The chaotic streets Valeriia Pareichuk utilised to stroll in Kherson, Ukraine, are now crammed with burned-out properties as found on her tv and cellphone screens. Over 5,000 miles from her relatives and good friends, she finds solace in her art and images to inspire peace.

“More men and women now know that Ukraine exists as a nation,” Pareichuk said. “This is a thing that is even now going on and I’m glad I get to share our very pleased history, culture, meals, and we’ve normally been which means to share it with every person. Now, I can share and assist test to be a portion of the adjust by images, art and additional to support raise recognition.”

She was born and elevated in Kherson, which is the southern aspect of Ukraine. Her hobbies provided making use of her digital camera and using images of her buddies, family members and homeland surroundings. She even remembers executing arts and crafts and having pottery classes.

“Our relatives did plan to at some point transfer to the United States,” Pareichuk reported. “It took in excess of 10 years then it took place out of nowhere.”

In the middle of her freshman 12 months of large university in Kherson, her spouse and children acquired a notification that they needed to do the job on a few of extra files and they could go to the United States.

In February 2015, the now 22-calendar year-aged moved with her mother to Jacksonville when her father and his aspect of the relatives stayed in Ukraine.

“It’s been a very long journey,” Pareichuk explained. “Even though I have taken English classes because school in Ukraine, the very first problem for me coming right here truly was the language, and I did not talk English at the time.”

Within just a 7 days of going from Ukraine to Jacksonville, she was enrolled in high school. Within just the to start with few many years, she reported she seemed forward to creating new buddies and getting excellent grades.

“Some of the other students realized what I was heading by means of,” Pareichuk said. “I didn’t have any Russian or Ukrainian mates and some of them had issue speaking with me.”

She had to use Google Translate.

“I was just thrown into it all,” she stated. “I went that tiny further mile to master some more [English] even from when I was in Ukraine and I understood possessing the probability to be right here may possibly assist with a bunch of prospects.”

She graduated significant school and now attends Florida Atlantic University and life in Delray Seashore. At FAU, she researched architecture for two decades and now research studio arts, finding out photography and printmaking.

While at FAU, Pareichuk been given news that Kherson was now being occupied by the Russians, and tens of millions of Ukrainians grew to become refugees as a end result of Russia’s invasion that commenced Feb. 24.

“When a ton of persons request me exactly where I’m from and I say Ukraine, a ton of persons didn’t know exactly where it is,” she explained. “But now, they just get so silent, quiet they really do not know what to say or they are like, ‘I’m so sorry.’”

The invasion transpired the day right before her birthday, and that night she couldn’t sleep and she was constantly hunting at Instagram to keep updated.

“I observed people publishing that they by no means assumed they’d wake up to the audio of an explosion or a bomb or guns,” Pareichuk reported.

She reported a two-thirty day period dip into melancholy led her to not experience well more than enough to go to perform or college, and she felt like there was not something she could do.

“I was so bewildered,” Pareichuk explained. ”I began texting my pals and family associates.”

She nonetheless keeps in make contact with with her father in Ukraine and he retains her up-to-date on what is taking place in her hometown.

“This full issue really took place in 2014 with Crimea,” Pareichuk mentioned. “People never speak about this any more and that tends to make me fearful since war, placing baggage above people’s heads getting them to a basement and questioning them, taking own files away is harassment that can go on for decades and no one need to go via that.”

She is having issues staying in touch with her father and mates simply because the internet link has been disrupted.

“At initially, I didn’t know how I’m going to get through it,” Pareichuk stated. “I just felt so hopeless mainly because I’m so far absent and I wish I could be there in the moment to be there for every person. I’m so far away, but there is a thing I can however do by means of my artwork and I can communicate out on this.”

She made the decision to converse out on this via artistic expression. She likes to operate in unique mediums but largely concentrates on digital artwork and pictures. She made a decision to use her pictures and electronic artwork to spread recognition about what is likely on and to communicate out about the war in Ukraine.

An illustration is the Ukrainian national dress, known as vyshyvanka, offered to her spouse and children by her godmother. Pareichuk crafted the headpiece, took self-portraits and integrated certain and symbolic bouquets. The blue-and-yellow ribbons connected to the again symbolize the sky and the fields of wheat. These are customarily worn on holidays and particular events by women and younger unmarried women of all ages.

In her self-portrait series, she needed to characterize elegance, delight and hope. Even while she’s never utilised herself as a design, she desired to be the subject to express organic emotion about how she felt about Ukraine currently being less than siege.

“For the self-portrait, I experienced distinctive men and women the two in Ukraine and listed here domestically telling me they can feel what I really feel by way of that sequence and understand,” Pareichuk claimed.

She also wished everybody to know that she is happy to be Ukrainian and that they will continue on to value and carry on their loaded society and historical past.

The sunflower is included in most of these performs because it is the countrywide flower of Ukraine. Some of her images are created with a movie camera, and her digital illustrations this sort of as the battle boot more than the sunflowers characterize the destruction and demolishment of the region, its people and locations.

“The sunflower is a metaphor,” Pareichuk reported, “like how it grows toward the sun and it will often get up.”

Inspite of trying to split Ukrainians apart, this invasion has only made them more powerful and nearer to each individual other, she stated.

“The to start with a person I did was the Ukrainian woman and it was a digital artwork, and it was a woman sporting the conventional Ukrainian outfits and obtaining tears come down her deal with,” Pareichuk claimed. “It felt so fantastic to share that. It assisted me to get via this full factor and even however I’m so far away, I can nevertheless speak out on this and people get a better knowledge that Ukraine is an unbiased region.”

Right after efficiently sharing her artwork and images with family members, professors, classmates and friends, Pareichuk was a aspect of the on-line 2022 FAU Senior Exhibition “Exploration Through Expression,” a showcase of presenting scholar get the job done. She was also portion of a drawing exhibition that was also Ukraine-linked, working with colored pencils to make an abstract layout over her self-portrait.

“It introduced a great deal of publicity and questions,” Pareichuk claimed. “I was grateful for that, and it reveals persons still care … and to be knowledgeable on the lifestyle and what is still taking place.”

Pareichuk’s pictures talents have also gone over and above the FAU campus with presents to take portraits and established up photoshoots.

“People convey to me they don’t see [the war] on the news as substantially any more and they ask me, ‘is it more than?’ and I say no, it’s not and folks are nonetheless having difficulties from this,” she said. “But we have gotten a lot of help from various nations around the world, and if you’ve at any time desired to defend your tradition and what you’re happy of, then you are Ukraine. I have my small yellow-and-blue ribbons tied to my vehicle and I’m happy more individuals now know Ukraine’s society, fashion, and I’m glad I get to share that as a great deal as achievable.”