THE CURRENT ART BEAT
WAR Paint
AN ARTIST FLEES UKRAINE AND FINDS PURPOSE (AND REFUGE) IN SOUTH FLORIDA BY JESS SWANSON
One of more than 9 million people who fled Ukraine in the largest ground war on European soil since World War II, artist Lesia Khomenko is finding respite in Broward County with her 11-year-old daughter. But some things are hard to leave behind. After evacuating to the U.S., Khomenko briefly returned to her war-stricken country to visit her husband, Max, who enlisted with the Ukrainian armed forces. Unsure of when they would see each other again, the couple married online in June on the 100th day of the war. We caught up with Khomenko in Tiachiv—a small town in western Ukraine—for what she refers to as her “so-called honeymoon.” Khomenko is in good spirits, smiling at her phone’s camera until a loud noise makes her flinch. This time, the ruckus is only the peal of church bells. But when Russian forces invaded her country in February, airraid sirens became a part of everyday life in Ukraine; she’s trained to think of any loud noise as a threat. 24
Now post-honeymoon, Khomenko has returned to South Florida as the artist-in-residence at Oasis Pointe, a new waterfront apartment building in Dania Beach—where she’s been given a fully furnished, rent-free apartment in exchange for at least two original paintings that will become a part of the building’s permanent art collection. Khomenko plans to continue depicting the war from the safety that 6,000 miles offers. Her paintings, which examine visual manipulation
Clockwise from far left: Ukrainian artist Lesia Khomenko; a pair of paintings of Ukranian soldiers from a series called Covert Surveilance are the last works Khomenko made before Russia invaded her home country in February; Max in the Army depicts Khomenko’s husband; Covert Surveillance/Artist in the Studio; Untitled, 2020, made from acrylic on canvas stretched over a wooden chaise lounge.
FORT LAUDERDALE ILLUSTRATED
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