Kyiv City Museum Collection
18 works were added to the Kyiv City Museum Collection, Ukraine
In October 2025, the Kyiv City Museum Collection was enriched with 18 graphic works by Kateryna and Tetiana Ocheredko. The works were created using black-and-white linocut, etching, and hand-drawn ink techniques, and are dedicated to the theme of the full-scale war.
In her works, Tetiana depicted the destruction experienced by Kyiv, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Irpin, Mariupol, and other cities of Ukraine. Landscape is a central motif in Tetiana’s art: a somewhat geometric and restrained treatment of form is combined with expressive white areas.
It is not enough to simply erase everything and turn it into a blank canvas. We remember. In this series, the artists visually convey the experiences, feelings, and emotions connected with the destruction of home and personal histories. All pain, fear, hope, and reflection are transmitted through lines and their pressure.
Hands, symbolizing action, become a central motif in Kateryna’s works. They can save or destroy, and sometimes speak louder than faces. The work “Bucha” (2022) is dedicated to Ukrainian women who suffered from the war.
The work “Life in Your Hands” is dedicated to women whom Kateryna met on streets, train stations, in various cities, and during border crossings. Their past, the memory of home and family — everything most precious from peaceful life — is concentrated in a single plastic bag, often half-torn and fragile, like fate itself. This bag contains not only belongings but also memory, love, and connection to loved ones. At the same time, it carries the weight of loss and uncertainty. It is terrifying.
Yet despite this, women find the strength to move forward: to save their lives, preserve memory, and rebuild and create anew in unfamiliar conditions. In their hands lies both the fragility and the resilience of life.
The works were created in Gdańsk and printed at Corvinus Presse in Berlin.
