Don’t Close Your Eyes: Images From The War in Ukraine
Hanna Melnyczuk is a Ukrainian-American artist and Senior Adjunct Professor in the Fine Arts department at UMass Lowell. She has lived in Groton with her family for 24 years. This past February 24, when she learned of the war in Ukraine - like most of the world - she was shocked and asked, "How can this happen in the 21st century?"
A few days after the war started, her drawing images changed from colorful representations to darker works depicting tanks, missiles, refugees and a mass grave in Bucha. Soon she began to look for like-minded artists on Instagram and found many Ukrainian artists responding to the war with similar, powerful imagery. Along with Halyna Andrusenko from Kyiv, she has curated an exhibit of 26 artists from Ukraine.
She believes that artists and individuals can be a small part of the solution in Ukraine. “As long as we all remain engaged, America will keep helping Ukraine. Public displays of our individual approval and support will keep America and our allies supporting Ukraine.”
To keep us all engaged, Hanna is organizing the exhibit Don’t Close Your Eyes: Images from the War in Ukraine, which will take place in November 2022 at the New Art Corridor in Newton, and at the Grimshaw Gudewicz Art Gallery at Bristol County Community College in Fall River. She hopes we can attend one of these exhibits.
The exhibit is being funded on Go Fund Me. She says, “Please consider making a donation. Your donation will show our politicians that the Untied States should not waver and continue strong support for Ukraine.” Here is the GoFund Me link: https://gofund.me/ec25b075 The proceeds from the exhibits will be: 50% of the sale price will go to the Artist, and 50% will go to a humanitarian organization such as: https://prytula.org and https://savelife.in.ua/. Both of these organizations were recommended to me by family in Lviv, Ukraine. Details will follow in the Groton Herald as the exhibition dates approach.