Ukrainian artist Diana Yevtukh creates beautiful embroidery and places it in burnt or empty trees. His colorful embroideries emerge from the empty spaces of trees or stones, making them more alive.
The lively embroidery seems to give a glimmer of hope in a gloomy environment. In an interview with Us, the artist says, “First he finds me a vacancy in a tree – I feel like something has been left out that belongs in a spot, then I measure and start embroidering.”
Diana has been creating these embroideries for almost 4 years. She said: “I walk a lot every day – it’s a very special and thoughtful part of my day. I try to run at least 7 km a day, but preferably more.” During my winter walks in 2018, I started thinking about the gaps in the bark of the trees I see on sidewalks every day
“I saw them as scars, but also as a void that needed to be filled with a statement.” “These thoughts have been floating around in my head for months and have obviously connected to my thoughts about embroidery,” she added.
“Embroidery is the art form I have enjoyed the most so far. In the last four years, I’ve tried not to use embroidery for a few weeks at most. In my heart, embroidery always wins competition with other art mediums,” the artist said.
Regarding the effects of this year’s Russian invasion, the artist said: “The first four months were particularly painful. The fear, pain, and desperation are hard to put into words. Russian rockets fell daily across the country, many of which landed in Lviv, the city where I live and work.Every other day, air-raid sirens disturbed the calm on the city streets. In this surreal, almost apocalyptic despair, embroidery was my only therapy. Things have calmed down a bit in the west of the country, especially after the recent successes of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, which laboriously drove the invaders out of the country.
“I still can’t help but feel the pain of my Ukrainian compatriots in the cities near the front and under occupation – the pain and horror that the Russians brought to our country is unimaginable.” The war forced me to seek civilian work in a war zone, so I converted,” he added.
