Olha Rodzik

Artist`s war story

Greetings! I am an artist, fashion designer, I also work with digital illustration and animation. My main art focus is on character, their emotional spectrum and portraying body flexibility. The theme of my art is often the world of fashion. 

 The war found me in Odesa. My mother-in-law called me, saying: “The war started! We’re being shelled!” She’s a military woman and the very same day her military base was heavily shelled. That first week all we could do was to look in the news reports on our phones about the numbers of explosions, missiles hitting residential buildings – it was impossible to believe that all of it was real. I felt my body heavy like a boulder from the amount of stress I was in. My husband and I decided to stay in Odesa. 

Now I am away from the front lines, but natively I am from Kherson. Therefore, for me personally this war was experienced through stories of my relatives, who are staying there and going through all difficulties of living in the near front line city. Kherson, my hometown, was under siege soon after the start of the full scale war and my family there became hostages of the reality that russia brought with it. After the liberation of the city the living situation became worse in some ways. People were able to breathe freely, but the heavy shelling began. We couldn’t reach my mother for a week since the day of liberation. All we could do was to watch videos about freed citizens of Kherson, to be happy for them, to cry and wait. For a month people there were living without running water, electricity and heating. Nothing was working in the city, one couldn’t cash their money in ATMs to buy groceries. I remember how my mother then was collecting rainwater from the roof of their house and ate straight from the pot because there was not enough water to wash up or to take a shower. Now people in Kherson are continuing living under heavy shelling, constant possibility of missile, drone, artillery attack.

At the beginning of 2023 my mental state was very bad, at the lowest point, but I was trying not to pay attention to this. I was finally mentally crushed when the russians detonated the Kakhovska HPP. My grandmother then was living on the besieged left bank of Kherson district and her house was flooded. For five days I was calling every possible emergency service, writing to a bunch of people, doing everything I could, so my grandma was saved and she, meanwhile, was living in the attic without food and water. Thousands of people on the left bank of Dnipro were suffering the same fate, so locals couldn’t help my grandma. I thought I would lose my mind, constantly worrying that she’ll starve to death, because her house was quite isolated. Fortunately, grandma was saved, now she’s staying on the besieged territory. The home that she once built with her own hands was destroyed by russia, turned into a graveyard of her memories, of a lifelong lost memorabilia. Instead she and others were presented with a russian passport. My grandma continues to experience daily hardships there, but, sadly, we can’t bring her out there at this moment. I feel utterly helpless in this situation of global suffering and grief. 

After all this my mental state deteriorated to depression. I had to seek professional help and undergo a lengthy treatment to save my mental health. 

My art

During those first few months I thought I lost my creative ability. I couldn’t relax or find my way into that special creative state of mind. I was constantly anxious, expecting something terrible to happen any moment. In time I was able to master some energy to create a number of illustrations about war that became part of a few exhibitions. But I felt that it is hard for me to work with the theme of war.

An impulse to return to creativity for me became the moment when I discovered Ukrainian culture once again. I began to research the history of Ukrainian national attire, thus I saw the beauty of our culture, how rich and authentic it was in the last century, before russians tried to eradicate it. I was amazed that we were able to keep our cultural identity despite all the obstacles. I became enamored with the other people’s efforts to preserve and develop it. Then I understood the importance of speaking (drawing) to people not only about war, but to show them those for whom we’re staying strong in it. To show them us, our nation, our culture, our values, because that is what our military is fighting for. 

I rediscovered my love for all that is Ukrainian and decided to share it with others by creating a large series of works with Ukrainian national costumes, which will be published already this fall. For me as an artist it’s the way to spread our cultural heritage, let people see it, admire it and experience the greatness of which they are part of, but, maybe, don’t realize or even know it. I want everyone to get to know the unique features of outfits from their ethnic region, or just to see what their ancestors were wearing. In times of big crises, such as this war, it’s important to return to our roots to remind ourselves what we are fighting for. What keeps us strong, for what we’ll prevail. Because we are Ukrainians and we should be proud of it. 

As for this day I was able to improve my mental state and start to once again enjoy my creative process, to figure out where to go from here. I think that I am ready to start expressing myself through illustrations that are more tangent to the pain of war. This time through my personal experience. 

Volunteering

In the first month of the full scale war my husband reached out to this girl that wanted to found a volunteer fund to help the soldiers. Him and I wanted to be useful, to use our talents and skills to help. Soon we had a small team of four people and named our fund Help Ukraine Team. I as an illustrator am creating the fliers for our fundraising events and other illustrations. Soon this activity became a stable routine for me and now I am confident that illustrators can be very useful assets in this war. Our fund continues to be active for more than a year already, together we’re capable of doing things that we wouldn’t be able to do if we were alone.