SPRING WAR COLLECTION 2017-2024
The Spring War Collection is rooted in a childhood memory that has shaped my way of seeing the world. When I was little, my grandmother once took me into the forest to gather berries. As we walked deeper among the trees, she showed me a place where soldiers had hidden tanks and lived during the war. For her, this clearing carried horrific memories. For me, as a child, it was filled only with beauty—flowers, light, and the quiet life of the forest.
That moment stayed with me. It taught me that nature has the power to heal the scars of war, just as time slowly heals the wounds of the heart. The forest became a kind of medicine—softening the brutality of memory and absorbing the violence that once occupied the land.
MIXED MEDIA COLLAGE
2023
108×48 INCHES
In the Spring War Collection, weapons appear intertwined with flowers, twisted together as if inseparable. They reflect a cycle: how beauty turns into a war zone, and how a war zone can slowly return to beauty. I began working on this series in 2017 and expanded it in 2022, after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. What once felt like inherited memory suddenly became a lived reality.
When I started this body of work, I did not know where it would lead me. Like the little girl who saw only beauty in a tragic forest, I chose a direction that holds beauty and loss together. War creates a new reality—one my grandmother experienced during World War II, and one my generation is facing again today. It is a war that does not make sense.
This collection is my way of expressing what both adults and children witness during dark times. Each work carries a dual metaphor: war and beauty existing at once. Through these pieces, I process pain while offering a message of hope.
ACRILIC ON CANVAS
75×75 INCHES
In the Spring War Collection, memories and imagination merge. The echoes of violence fade into the silence of nature’s embrace. Wildflowers grow over ruins. Places that once held terror become places of life. What is horrific for one generation may become a landscape of beauty for the next.
The Spring War Collection is a reminder that after chaos, life continues. New generations rise. Trees grow. Flowers bloom. And berries return to the forest.
2017
