A new vinyl installation in Manhattan’s East Village uses the visual language of a mural and appeals to a popular sentiment of New Yorkers toward the war in the Ukraine. Attached to a long low wall in vinyl, the work features the well-known street artist/fine artist WAONE and his uniquely surreal collection of imagined icons and symbology afloat across a bisection of yellow and blue, like the exiled artist’s flag.

As we collectively mark one year of this war costing Ukrainian and Russian lives and largely paid for by the US and NATO and the Russian Federation, we have seen countless references in the street from artists of many disciplines, using many techniques. We’ve seen graffiti, stencils, murals, chalk murals, stickers, and aerosol screeds. The artwork has been angry or sentimental, stoking patriotism, a sense of humanity, bitter cynicism, and plain hatred.

The community of street artists worldwide has been vocal primarily against this war, its leaders, its profiteers – and for the hapless humans caught in between, with prominent European artists like Banksy from England and C215 from France creating street art pieces directly on walls and tanks on the war field. Elsewhere, artists of all stripes commemorate, express their opinion, or rally their countrymen and countrywomen to do their part. For WAONE the war is not a cause, or a dinner party topic to discuss and debate. It is very personal; he is from Ukraine.

In his statement that accompanies this installation, he draws a direct connection to the very large population of New Yorkers who emigrated originally from Ukraine and pays tribute to them as well as those back home.

“Before the pandemic and before the war, I traveled all over the world to paint large mural works,” he says. “Most of the murals I created fit to the place/surroundings and were inspired by the local cultural specificities. This time I don’t need to do cultural research because I am working on a piece that aims to represent the Ukrainian spirit. It is also so significant for me that this work will be shown in the East Village, near the heart of Ukrainian American culture.”

WAONE of Interesni Kazki. “From Legend To Discovery”. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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