Tata Kolesnik

Tata Kolesnik is a Kharkiv-born contemporary artist, who learned to paint in the early 2000s under the tutelage of the great Ukrainian artist Eugen Bikov. At the start of the war, Kolesnik was forced to evacuate from her hometown of Kharkiv to Germany.

Kolesnik’s work is deeply influenced by traditional Ukrainian portraiture and iconography, particularly in relation to women and their place in society. Tata uses her work to convey shared experiences and common stories – stories which, since the onset of the invasion, have become inextricably linked with conflict and the struggle for freedom.