KIEV – A Ukrainian artist has used 5,000 spent cartridge cases to create a portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin, entitled “A Face of War”.
The work by Daria Marchenko took over four months to complete.
“The war is full of human lives, which are like cartridge cases,” she explained. “If people remember this, if people who came to Ukrainian lands with aggression remember this, war will not begin.”
Marchenko says she uses light on the portrait to accentuate Putin‘s character and emotions.
“Depending on the lighting he (Putin) gets accents on the cheekbones or eyes. Depending on the light, the emotions in the eyes change. This work has different facial expressions, different characters.”
The cartridge cases, mostly from Kalashnikov rifles, were collected by volunteers from sites near Donetsk airport, in eastern Ukraine and other battlefields in the Donbass region.
Among those who helped Marchenko with her portrait and other works of art were Yuriy Mikhailsky, a member of the Donbass battalion, a Ukrainian Volunteer Defence Force, who was wounded twice in battles in eastern Ukraine.
“This is very interesting – to view the pictures’ interpretation, as war is related to art,” Mikhailsky exlpained. “It is unusual. And maybe it is even necessary because many people understand what is happening now. Maybe in such a way they will see that there is a war going on.”
Mikhailsky said he hoped the works of art would help people understand the crisis in Ukraine.
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