Mariupol. Currently, it is a tragedy not only for Ukrainians, but also for the entire planet. A bright, sunny seaside city turned into ruins that are blackened by soot. Thousands, maybe even tens of thousands of dead civilians. The heroism of the defenders. Blood and tears. Death and grief.
Our series of icons is dedicated to this city, its inhabitants and defenders. Eleven works that combine classic iconography and quick sketches of the destroyed city, the "moonscape" of which is as impressive and depressing as the ruins of Aleppo, Dresden or Hiroshima...
The idea of creating this series arose immediately after the city was surrounded by Russian troops. Knowing this city, its defenders, as well as the extent to which Ukrainians prepared for its defense, it became clear that the siege of the city would last a long time by the beginning of March. It was also obvious that the battle for Mariupol would become a bloody massacre that would be similar to the storming of Grozny or Aleppo, and therefore a terrible tragedy for hundreds of thousands of its inhabitants. The first reports and descriptions of the events that we saw testified to the truth of our intuition. And it was during these days of the early March, despite what was happening near Kyiv, despite the fierce battles for Bucha, Gostomel and Irpin, that we decided to start work on a series of works dedicated to Mariupol and its inhabitants, a city that was a thousand kilometers away from Kyiv, somewhere far away from us. It seems that the reason why we took on this work was the sympathy for this bright southern seaside city, with its sincere and kind inhabitants, as well as the fact that the Azov region itself is a place of compact residence for Ukrainian Greeks that resettled there after the annexation of Crimea, and directly connects Ukraine with the Mediterranean region, the Greek antiquity, with Byzantium, giving us the right to claim this great heritage.
There was no doubt that the language of Byzantine art is natural for Mariupol, therefore, our series should be as Byzantine as possible in its figurative language. At the same time, the detachment of classical Byzantine art from the contemporary world had to be balanced out by something. Heaven should meet with our wounded and crippled earth. That is why we had the idea to add the landscape sketches of the war-ravaged city to the image of the saints, the idea to combine the gold nimbus of Christ Pantocrator with black coal and negligent sanguine nimbuses of the Mother of God, John the Baptist, and archangels. The transcendence of the icons had to crumble, like buildings in Mariupol did under Russian bombs, rockets and shells. Once ruined, it had to create and rethink itself anew, now filled with the experience and turmoil of suffering.
And just like that, the eschatology of the classical Byzantine deesis collided with the eschatology of our days, one that is devoid of medieval symbolism and tact. Traditional tempera techniques collided with rough charcoal strokes and stains, medieval holiness collided with contemporary expressions, the gold leaf of the nimbus seems to have slipped away, unable to withstand the tragedy of the situation…
The images of Mariupol’s landscapes cut off the figures of the saints at the waists while organically prolonging the folds of clothing, with these folds flowing into the buildings, turning into dark, smoky ruins. A depopulated city appears In the lower parts of the icons, however, it is still filled with people, with alive people, alive in spite of everything around them. These people are not visible, but they are there. The inhabitants are hiding among the ruins, and they, these people, not the buildings, become the symbol of the unfortunate city, the saints pray for them... The series is dedicated to the people, to those who are invisible and unknown to us.
The work on the series required a lot of consideration and tact towards the victims of this tragedy. No one will ever fully understand what the residents and the defenders of Mariupol felt. Therefore, we constantly had to ask ourselves whether we have the moral right to express our opinions on the matter. Isn't silence more appropriate in the face of such grief and such heroism? But if you stay silent, the silence eventually takes the form of indifference... And we wanted to tell the whole world about what is currently happening in Ukraine, about the people affected by the war, about the absurd, unacceptable, unthinkable reality. As absurd as a charcoal sketch on an icon…
Sonya Atlantova, Oleksandr Klymenko.
