Through the Prism of Ancestral Memory

My most honest thank you to Michaela Doyle, who not only co-wrote and interviewed Anna,

but thought me most of what I know about writing and editing.

Connecting with Ukrainian artist Anna Moskalets via video call, you might not guess she has been spending long days and nights in her studio. Fresh-faced and articulate in her non-native English, Anna speaks thoughtfully about her work and adjusting to a new version of life she was not planning for but is nonetheless thriving in. With art shows coming up in the US in LA and Atlanta to raise money for Ukraine, Anna has been hard at work creating a series of paintings and digital collages speaking to modern womanhood, ancestral memory and the war waging in her country. ZOOT spoke with Anna about her artwork, where she finds inspiration and how Russia’s war in Ukraine has upended her life.

Born in the northeast of Ukraine, Anna, like many other Ukrainians, fled her home country in search of peace and security. Now, as we approach one year since Russia began its invasion in Ukraine, Anna is living in Germany – going from Berlin to now Potsdam – where she found a studio and place to temporarily call home. “Potsdam is a balance between peaceful, calm life and city life.” But she is constantly returning to her true home in Ukraine through her artwork.

A persistent theme in Anna’s artwork today is women draped in scarves. For Anna and many Ukrainians, scarves are a multifaceted part of their cultural heritage. She explains, “in Ukrainian culture, it’s not just a piece of material. It’s something that you can see on children’s heads, on grandmothers and women. When you see it on different generations, it gathers them all in one.” The colours and ways of wearing the scarves on the head and body signal different life events and situations that can be tragic or celebratory. “It’s not just something simple; it brings a lot of meaning, you just need to know this kind of culture to understand all the pitfalls that it can bring.”

The women in Anna’s paintings have a haunting yet familiar quality to them. In fact, the models Anna uses for the cloaked silhouettes are typically friends or family members—someone with whom she has a previous connection. “It is the will of the [viewer] to imagine what she wants, but for me, I’m close to the person. I feel a connection with what I’ve made”, she explains. Through the process of covering them, arranging the fabric and photographing them in preparation to paint, the artwork becomes a collaboration and an act of love.

Anna started her series with the scarves in 2019, but she began to see the imagery in a different way when the war started. After fleeing her home and her studio in Kyiv, one way she found to express herself in the gloom and terror of the basement where she was hiding was by exploring digital collages that incorporate the cloaked women in her oil paintings. “It saved me and it saved a lot of money for therapy because I was in a basement and I was trembling and felt really scared. I realized I needed to do something and then the digital collages were the only way to do things.”The vibrant colours of the painted scarves set against images of buildings leveled by Russian missiles, is a play of contrasts: sublime and disturbing. Seeing these artifacts of Ukrainian cultural heritage juxtaposed against the real present destruction of Ukrainian daily life sends a powerful message. The collages give her a way to react to the war outwardly and in real time. 

The photos she uses for the backgrounds are mostly open source, with some coming from her friends on the front lines, and she always chooses them with careful consideration. She is wary of causing emotional harm to her viewers, but still she wants to be impactful in her visual statements. It is “an investigation of life”, as Anna puts it: “horrifying and realistic at the same time”.

Anna’s digital work came as a way for her to extend her expression of self through new mediums and analysis of her surroundings. She realized that the approach would be the most effective way to express her artistic identity. “I tried to visualize liquidity. I tried to visualize streets, and street-like geometrical forms… then I realized I needed something that is really close to my inner vision for what I would like to show to the observer, something that represents my artwork. They will see that it’s my identity.”

One particularly powerful digital collage Anna completed recently is based on her original artwork “Eksteza”. The collage features a woman enveloped in a faded black scarf with her head tilted toward the sky and the hints of a grieving face outlined beneath the covering. The painted woman is superimposed on an image of the residential block in Dnipro that was hit by a Russian missile on 14 January 2023, placed in the gaping hole with disfigured apartments on either side and a mass of crumbled concrete, dust and burned cars below. The friend who modeled for this image had experienced the destruction of her own house only a few months earlier in Lozova. Anna explained, “I chose the silhouette of my friend who lost her home. She has deep grief and understanding because now Ukraine is a big wound that is bleeding. The tragedy of the war touches every Ukrainian.” She explained further, “the frustration is immeasurable. It hurts every time.”

Through her artwork, Anna is raising awareness about the war in Ukraine and money for the army and citizens. She is working closely with the Sunflower Network, a nonprofit organization that raises money for humanitarian aid and automobiles for the Ukrainian Army, having already donated more than $1 million dollars. “I’m happy that we have this kind of collaboration because even though I want to go home and wanna see Ukraine win, you know there are organizations like Sunflower Network that help a lot, which is also great.” Anna’s artwork was recently featured at the Sunflower Network’s Sonya gallery event in LA.

Obscured by the sumptuous fabrics, the women in Anna’s oil paintings and collages appear simultaneously restricted and commanding. They defiantly take up space in front of painted tapestries and amongst the rubble, and every veiled face holds a personal history and an entire life of joy and heartache. In the context of Ukrainian cultural heritage or senseless destruction from missiles and bombs, the feminine spirit is vital: “The one that knows no limitations and has the courage to reveal its own essence, live the natural cycle, and perceive the world as it is.”

The interview in full can be read here.

All images courtesy of Anna Moskalets.

Editorial piece originally written for Zoot Magazine alongside Michaela Doyle.