Tomorrow, before it's all over Landscapes drawn by Ukrainian painters October 21, 19:01

A 23-year-old artist evacuated from Ukraine where fierce fighting continues.

She came to a temple related to Nobunaga in Shiga Prefecture and completed seven landscape paintings in two months.

In a foreign country where she sought a place of expression, her works changed from "black and white" to "color".

What are your thoughts on that?

(Hikone bureau reporter Masaya Fujimoto)

The woman's name is Maria Luisa Filatova (23).

She is from Zaporizhia in the southeastern part of Ukraine and has been staying in Shiga since late August.

She was born and raised in an area with a nuclear power plant that often appears in the news, and she lived with her parents.

She took refuge in a western city near the border with her neighboring Slovakia in June this year, leaving her parents unwilling to leave her hometown as the Russian attack raged.

Shortly before that, she learned through a friend of hers that an initiative called "Artists in Residence" was being held in Japan.

It is an initiative in which multiple artists stay in a certain place for a certain period of time and create works while living together.

The event was planned by Nonki Nishimura (65), an artist who has an atelier in Nagahama City, northern Shiga Prefecture.

After retiring from teaching, he has experience making art in Poland and has many international artist friends.

I decided to resume the "artist in residence" that was canceled due to corona for the first time in 3 years.

Then, in response to the Russian invasion, several Ukrainian artists who wanted a place to express themselves offered to come to Japan.

Louisa was one of them.

Many Ukrainian artists use direct depictions of victims and destroyed buildings to convey the situation of their homeland to the world.

Mr. Nishimura was moved by the application form Mr. Luisa sent him.

Nonki Nishimura

``By drawing 'the scenery I saw before the war started,' she was able to capture the nature destroyed by the war and things that were damaged, but remain in her heart. He wrote that he wanted to continue painting landscapes.I thought that there was something in it that appealed to the hearts of everyone, and that he wanted peace, so I really wanted him to come.”

Luisa will come to Shiga with artists from South Korea and Poland.

From October 22nd, an exhibition will be held at Jogon-in Temple in Omihachiman City, which is associated with Nobunaga Oda.

The first thing I drew was "The scenery of my hometown that I want to protect"

Luisa's first painting in Shiga was this oil painting measuring 85 cm high and 120 cm wide.

"Sunset in Zaporizhia from my window" This is the view from

the 9th floor of the apartment where I lived with my parents when I was young.

The Dnipro River in Ukraine.

A nice bridge over the river.

And the sunset drawn in pale madder and blue is impressive.

All the paints, palettes and brushes came from Ukraine.

Luisa explains why she decided to paint this painting.

Luisa:

It was spring in March. I didn't know what was going to happen, so I didn't even go outside and just watched the scenery from the window. And I was impressed by the "color".

I thought it was scary and dark outside, but when I went out, everything was beautiful.

I wanted this landscape I was looking at to be safe, and I wanted this landscape to be eternal.

It was a view I wanted to protect."

From "black and white portraits" to "coloured landscape paintings"

I (the reporter) continued to visit her atelier for almost a month.

One day she said something that surprised her.

It was after the war began that he started painting landscapes with gentle colors and a gentle touch.

Until then, the focus was on portraits of people, all in black and white.

She talks about how she started to draw "colorful landscape paintings".

Luisa:

“Before, I thought landscape painting was old-fashioned and boring. And I liked to paint in black and white. 'War' freed my mind.'

'Because tomorrow everything could end. So I have to do this now. are you using it

"You don't appreciate what you already have."

Another thing that left an impression on Luisa's story was that immediately after arriving in Japan, it was difficult to face the canvas.

This is because when she remembers the family she left behind in her hometown and the battle, various emotions such as anger and sadness attack her.

It was the rural scenery of Shiga that gave her peace of mind.

She often took walks in Omihachiman City, where her exhibition is held at Jogonin, and Nagahama City, where she resides.

With a red-covered sketchbook under her arm and listening to her favorite music, she walks for about an hour, waiting for "the moment" when she wants to draw.

Luisa:

“When I walk, I feel relieved. Oh, what a beautiful river, what a beautiful house, listening to music and thinking, oh, what a beautiful plant. I'm drawing it out."

Of the seven oil paintings he made in Japan, five are of rice fields.

A rice field where the roots of golden rice ears remain against a background of dark green mountains.

Horizon and rows of regular ridges.

Luisa:

“I am very attracted to geometric compositions. Ukraine also has wheat fields and there are some similarities.”

Why is it a "landscape painting" that has nothing to do with battles, while his hometown is repeatedly attacked?

She continued quietly.

Luisa:

“I want to paint landscapes that I want to preserve and preserve forever. We don't appreciate it when we already have it, but we only appreciate it when we lose it."

I'm starting to get used to Japan, but in my home country...

It's been a month since I came to Japan.

Luisa was beginning to get used to living and creating in Shiga.

However, the battle in his homeland continues, and the situation changes moment by moment.

At the end of September, Putin unilaterally announced the annexation of four provinces, including her hometown of Zaporizhia.

In October, attacks from Russia intensified, and 12 shells fell near the apartment building where her parents lived.

Her parents, who had remained in her hometown, were also forced to flee to the outskirts of the capital Kyiv.

The mother, who spoke to him on a video call for the first time in a week, began to talk about what she had experienced in the past few days, such as life in an air raid shelter and the pleasures she found at an evacuation site.

She also cared about her in Japan, but she said, "I think there's a lot of mixed emotions," Luisa said worriedly.

As she lives far away in Japan, her feelings for her hometown grow stronger day by day.

Luisa:

"I decided to be a little stronger. Now I think about people who are more difficult than the situation I'm in. For example, war, work, feeding children. "I'm not in that kind of situation

right

now. And before I knew it, I'd gotten used to it. I think it's the worst thing to do. For example, bombings." I've gotten to the point where I wish it wasn't my house, but I don't think that should be the case."

What I told Japanese children

Luisa completed seven paintings while being shaken by the news of her home country.

On October 17, just before the exhibition, she was asked to teach at an elementary school in Omihachiman City.

A moral lesson called "a heart that does not give in to difficulties."

Luisa used her slides to explain about Ukraine, and then told the children the message she put in her work.

Luisa:

"Ukraine is no longer what it used to be. So I thought about peace and decided to paint a piece about peace. When I paint, I see the beautiful things I see. I draw while thinking that I want to protect.Even if someone destroys something that I love very much, we can create it again.”

The weight of Luisa's words I felt during the interview

I interviewed Luisa for about a month.

Many artists do not want their creative activities to be seen or photographed by others.

Under such circumstances, she responded to interviews many times, and answered my clumsy questions in English politely, as if spinning out each word.

And even as her friends' immediate family died in bombings and her parents were forced to flee, she never criticized Russia.

This time, by listening to an artist talk and seeing him painting up close, I felt like I was able to understand for the first time that "an artist puts his or her thoughts into the canvas."

For me, the seven oil paintings by Luisa are not just paintings with colors.

I feel that "fear", "experience", "decision", and "wish for peace" are also layered there.

And then she said, "Tomorrow, everything might end, so I'll draw a world with color."

When she thinks about how she felt, she never knew when her life or her family's life would end.

At the end of her interview, she saw a side of her she hadn't seen before.

It happened when she gave her some snacks as she was rushing to the exhibition.

She used the translation function on her smartphone and typed in Ukrainian, "Please have a late-night snack." He giggles happily.

A 23-year-old young woman who jumped into a strange foreign country to convey her thoughts through her paintings.

Two oil paintings depicting "hometown that I do not want to lose, and even if it is destroyed, I want to regain it."

Five rural landscapes of Shiga that I drew thinking that they were similar to the landscapes of Ukraine.

It will be exhibited at Jogon-in Temple in Omihachiman City, Shiga Prefecture from October 22nd.

From all of her paintings, it seems that you can hear her voice saying, "It's not natural that you have the scenery you're looking at now. Please cherish it."

Hikone Branch Reporter

Masaya Fujimoto

Joined in 2002 After working in the Okayama, Okinawa, and international departments, stationed in Brazil, worked at the Kochi and International Broadcasting Stations.