What did you do before February 24?
— After a year of COVID and lockdowns, I didn’t do much. Before February 24, I was mostly riding a bike and snowboarding. As it turned out later, that was a good idea, because after the full-scale invasion began, I was able to join the process with fresh energy and vision, and without burnout.
I was primarily working on Ukrainian animation projects, which required a lot of time and resources. After the full-scale war started, it became emotionally challenging to plan long-term projects. There was so much happening that it was easier and more practical to switch to illustration. When something happens, you can immediately draw it and post it.
Did you think that there could be a full-scale invasion?
I originally come from the east of Ukraine. There, people live in a way that they have to abstract themselves from threats and not dwell on them if they want to remain effective and keep moving forward.
Before the invasion, I was very worried about my family in the United States: they stayed at home until the last moment. My relatives believed that if it happens, then it happens. They tended to think that this was just saber-rattling to show power, hint at something, or gain better positions. There was no anticipation of such an escalation. Reality exceeded all expectations, in a bad way.
Can you describe your day of February 24?
— When the invasion began, most people in Ukraine were asleep. Because of the time difference, it was daytime for me. I went snowboarding, and when I came back home, there was Putin’s speech broadcast, and massive missile attacks began. Some people from the city where I was born and where my parents lived immediately wrote that there was a missile attack on a military facility. I was shocked: I came back from the slopes to find out this news.
Before February, you had few posts on your Instagram. Why have you decided to be back to creative blogging so abruptly? Was it a need to express yourself or a desire to do something useful?
—First, there were a lot of emotions to process. If reduced to some selfish residue, it’s just therapy. Some people do the dishes, some go for a walk with their dog; my anger and fury got converted into creativity.
Second, I wanted to talk about Ukraine. Having lived in the USA for a long time, I think about how people perceive our country and what clichés need to be dismantled. Ukrainian topics attracted a lot of attention, and it was necessary to respond to this demand. Many people from other countries wrote to me, even those seemingly influenced by Russian propaganda. There was a need to explain to them what was really happening.
As it turned out, I know a lot of people in the creative and media spheres. I started to connect them according to their needs. For instance, some media moved from the TV format to Telegram and needed a new avatar and identity. So, I looked for someone who could create it.
Another thing we did was develop the TacticMedAid application. Now, there’s an app in both the App Store and Play Market. There had been a printed version and a guideline on how to provide first aid for injuries and other emergencies during the war.
But there was no Ukrainian-language platform that collected all the tips in a simple way so that a person with no medical education could understand how to save someone’s life or limb by navigating a chatbot or through images. We had to create illustrations for this amount of data, and we did this together with a team of IT professionals from Kyiv.
Describe your creative process—not for projects, but just for illustrations that you wanted to draw.
—During the first weeks of the invasion, I had the TV on with the news all the time at home. When I listen to something, I want to draw, just to keep my hands working. This is how I perceived the content: I listened to podcasts, news, monitored the events happening in Ukraine, talked to my friends and relatives, and during that time, I was drawing.
The stories just kept coming. These were mostly memes or images of people I admired—this is how I came up with the series about superheroes.
I also considered another point of view: whether the topic aligns with my style.
There are great illustrators who can draw families of deceased people or heroic deeds of Azovstal defenders. If I delve into these topics with my own style, I feel that I might not do them justice or achieve the right balance. I am afraid it might look like a caricature. But the stories that inspire, where people demonstrate unexpected abilities, are more in line with my style.
How do people from other countries react to your work?
—I got a lot of support. Americans have a certain culture of perceiving news. It reminds me of the way our grandparents read newspapers, paying attention to the details. While we know what is going on in Ukraine and a few more loud pieces of news, people in the States are more engaged. They know what is happening in other countries around the world: the problems in Africa, events in Australia, how elections in India are going, etc. The people I met followed the news in detail. They used Ukrainian memes, knew in which direction Bakhmut is located, and that Saltivka is a residential area in Kharkiv.
Emotions are not as wild now as at the beginning of the invasion. How does the ninth month of the Full-scale war affect your creativity?
—I wouldn’t say emotions are not as wild; they’re just a bit different. By May, I started to realize that the war wouldn’t end soon, and I had to think in the long term.
Psychologically, practically, and logistically, it’s necessary to set ourselves up for a long ride. In the long run, people should be compensated for what they were initially willing to do out of a sense of urgency and impulse. At the beginning of the invasion, I was selling T-shirts with my prints and donating 100% of the proceeds to Ukraine’s needs. Of course, there were some production costs, but I couldn’t sustain such a business model for a long time. To continue helping consistently, I started a store, and now I donate 30% of my profit.
You have a series of images about the creative Forces of Ukraine. In your opinion, what is the role of art in a war?
—I think this role is very important. Many people follow events through screens—through the small windows in their hands: a phone, a tablet, a laptop. I consider it to be another frontline in the fight against Russian propaganda and the so-called Russian culture that once had great resources. Now, we can see how memes can destroy all these images created by Russians.
One person with a good idea and taste who creates a meme can stand up to bot farms and copywriters from Russian TV trying to create their own image and some sort of media sensation.
This frontline runs through many other countries and people who “still haven’t decided.” The struggle for these people continues because those who already understand who the enemy is and what should be done perceive these materials as additional support or entertainment.
The very fact that you are interviewing me also partly answers the question of the importance of art. It is being discussed, therefore it touches you.
And I want to put my little brick (in the form of a pixel) into the image of a rebuilt Ukraine.
Original version published on November 3, 2022 in collaboration with Online media outlet Svidomi.