From death to life. Literally.

On March 31, one of the most unusual auctions in the world went live for the third time. “Icons Save Lives” is a collection of Ukrainian Orthodox icons painted by 34 contemporary artists who used empty ammunition boxes and bullet casings from the ongoing war against Russia as their canvases. Proceeds from the auction will be used to purchase a mobile blood collection station for Lviv Regional Blood Service Center. “During the war, the need for donated blood doubled,” Always Ukraine, one of the auction’s sponsors, said, “and the number of donors decreased. We need both soldiers and donors.”

“Icons Save Lives” is organized by Always Ukraine, Zavzhdy UA and the IconArt Gallery in Ukraine. Two weeks before it opened, buyers from around the world had already purchased almost enough icons to pay for the mobile blood collection station. 

“The main purpose of art is to form an identity, because without it, even a won war can be lost very quickly,” artist Kateryna Kuziv told Christian Courier. “It also testifies to reality and gives strength to hold on.” 

Visual Theology

Kuziv recently held an exhibition in Lviv called “Why the Sky Doesn’t Fall” with poet Yulia Vintoniv.  The exhibition didn’t promise answers, just a witness of the “fragments of lives torn apart and dreams plundered by the war” and an invitation to “seek hope amidst darkness.” 

Since IconArt Gallery opened in Lviv in 2010, it has hosted free local exhibitions as well as sent its icons around the world. Its website describes contemporary sacred art as “interpreting the long and rich tradition of historic art forms within the context of modern culture and contemporary art trends.” Kuziv, one of the gallery’s artists, explained that icons used to teach illiterate people the Holy Scriptures, a function we no longer need it for. “What should the icon give the viewer now? In my opinion, the icon should now function as a visual theology and as sharing the experience of feeling God.”

The function of an icon is the same as before the war, Kuziv continued, “but I notice for myself and my colleagues that since the beginning of the war, more attention is paid in icons to the physical suffering of Christ.” The events of war and “the experience of pain that increases with each day of the war” are “what we visually talk about, what we try to find answers to.” 

Exhibition by flashlight 

Yaroslava Tkachuk, whose icon hangs above my desk, has a distinctive style. She works everyday materials of metal and lace into her threaded, textured icons. Now, some of her recent icons wrap bullet casings into the threadwork too. Hlafira Shcherbak, whose fiancé was killed in Mariupol fighting the Russian invasion, painted St. Nicholas – a saint who represents hope – in camouflage colours. 

In March 2022, a month after Ukraine was invaded, IconArt Gallery re-opened to the public. Children and adults drew pictures in support of volunteers and soldiers, Anastasia told Christian Courier. These were exhibited and then mailed out across the country. “We also worked in the autumn and winter of 2022 during a mass blackout to save energy. However, guests came and illuminated the works with flashlights. People need art in all times, especially in these difficult times.”

What darkness frames 

Natalia Rusetska’s first exhibition at the gallery took place in 2013. “Icons of Natalia Rusetska are witnesses of light.” Mariya Tsymbalista wrote. Now that the war in Ukraine continues, “Darkness seems to fill everything around. It is no longer just a symbol . . . Still, we struggle, we search for space, color, light, we need support, and we continue to break through that hellish circle.” 

In Rusetska’s icons, symbolism begins to tell a story: green delineated by concentric marks for the earth and flowing, rippling blue for heaven – the two spaces colliding or not in each icon. In some icons of St. George and Archangel Michael the blue is pressed against the teeth of a dragon. In a Nativity icon the blue of heaven parts like a curtain. In an Epiphany icon it flows freely through the green in every direction. In a beautiful Last Supper icon, it hovers above a table where all the disciples wear garments to match the blue. In “Twisting the Sky” a nail-pierced hand grips the edge of a blue sky. Each icon tells a story of an in-breaking of heaven and this is why her recent work, the “Kingdom of Heaven” – painted on a dark background – stops me in my tracks. It’s huge. A lush and vibrant green fills the entire canvas, rimmed in blue. There’s a smudge on the lower edge, but otherwise no acknowledgement of the darkness. 

“What does an artist do in the face of the end of the world as we knew it?” Evgenia Nesterovych asked in response to Yulia Doynska’s recent exhibition “Land.” 

“She harnesses all her strength as tools for her ritual, aiming to reshape the world and overcome destruction through the power of creation.”