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My granny embroidered different folk motifs and I looked a lot at the process, another one made crochet decorative pillows, etc. My grandpa adores music. I think that it all affected me.
All my childhood I was introverted and read a lot of books. That's made me who I am. Different fairy tales and more deep and serious literature were my inspiration. I always liked to draw but had a trauma with my art teacher in childhood so refused to draw when I was 12 and started to learn around 20. That's why I am a self-taught artist. I couldn't trust teachers and choose to find my own way of looking at great artists and decorative folk motives.
I adore impressionists and understood that my art's first aim was just to impress people, to show the beauty of paper and different natural motives and a bit of imagination. It's hard to say about inspiration - cause there are lots of things: strange dreams, good films, book covers, fantastic personages.
Now, I am a working mother of two kids. My artworks are all around the world - I send them to the USA, Britain, Canada, Israel, Brazil, Japan, China and many others.
At first, I draw a sketch on paper, and then I use a knife and cutting mat to start cutting. The time I spend on it is usually different and depends on the number of details. It starts from two hours for small pieces and can take a month for the large ones. Some days I can work for 9 hours and some for two. If I do collages, I glue paper-cut pieces to each other and have a volumized picture. And it also takes a lot of time.
My favorite part of the creative process is when I see the final result, but the whole process is mesmerizing for me, it is like meditation.
I want to thank all of the people who support Ukraine, and also Ukrainian artists. Lots of us not only lost our jobs but even our homes. But we see how the world is connected, we see how many kindhearted people are all around our Earth. That helped us a lot in our fight for humanity.
The first two weeks of the war affected me a lot. I couldn't create because we had also moved to a quiet place near Kyiv in order to not hear and see the explosions (I have two kids), but then the sounds of explosions found us there too. So we decided to return home because many specialists said that the capital is the most secure and safe place. So I returned to my materials and started creating again. Art shops were not open and I had to cut with the last blades I have. I suffered mentally a lot, so I decided to create more positive art, I want to believe this helps people focus on the victory and also that we will see that only kindness, only love helps us not to be stuck in war and hatred.
I am also proud of those artists who started to create from the first days - they supported me so much, and they showed how strong art and people in Ukraine are. Please, stand with us!
