THE MOTIF OF THE LOST HOME IN CONTEMPORARY UKRAINIAN PAINTING

Abstract

The article explores how contemporary Ukrainian artists depict the loss of home and the trauma of war in their works. With the beginning of the full-scale invasion, a space that was generally understood as safe turned into a place of greatest vulnerability. Artists focus not only on the direct documentation of hostilities but also on the altered and destroyed space. Using the works of three artists, Illia Yarovyi, Oleh Shupliak, and Danylo Shupliak, their approaches to this theme are analyzed. I. Yarovyi’s triptych «Imprints of War. Irpin Mirror» shows how war invades personal space through surviving household details, smoke-stained wallpaper, and a mirror shard. In O. Shupliak’s series «Eyes of War,» destroyed high-rise buildings act as living witnesses – eyes looking at the viewer, forming an image of collective pain. D. Movchan’s watercolors show the sacralization of traumatized space. It is concluded that contemporary Ukrainian art does not simply document the destruction of walls but creates a memory of spiritual resilience. The destroyed home has become not only an embodiment of a shared tragedy but also a powerful tool of Ukrainian resistance.