Born 1991 in Kiev, Ukraine. Painting.
Creating illustrations helped me not to get lost in my own thoughts and experiences.
Anna Bitaieva
Now I understand that having left all the plans and projects, the opportunity to work in the workshop and create something familiar, I seemed to turn the page. And the next reversal became a really new chapter in my creative path.
It was a really difficult period, there was a burnout, a constant state of depression, apathy… I really didn’t want to draw anything for the first time in many years. I really tried to do something but nothing worked.
The idea of creating an art exhibition where participants from different countries will be able to share their emotions during the lockdown found an incredibly strong echo in me.
Throughout the time since the pandemic, I have talked a lot with friends who don’t live in Ukraine and I understand how different the situation about the virus may be in different countries. It’s very important to me to participate in the 365daysafter project because I also have a little story that I would like to tell as many people as possible. It talks about how I discovered my love for digital illustration and how it affected my mind during the pandemic.
It’s really interesting, how the simple drawings on the tablet, redrawn from my paintings, helped to relieve the accumulated stress and correct anxiety. I sincerely believe that this kind of activity can help not only me, and my little experiment proved it. During the quarantine, I gave my friends sheets with black and white drawings and offered to color them. Each of the participants noted that this activity calmed down, brought thoughts into harmony and order. Maybe my story can help someone in this difficult time.
My story about the pandemic is directly related to art. The situation, which was developing with incredible speed in every corner of the world, couldn’t help but frighten. It was a shock. Everything I was used to in the ordinary turned upside down and now had a completely different look. There was a prolonged apathy, there was no desire to do anything and somehow move on. And there were not so many options for the development of the creative sphere of my activity. It so happened that I had no paints or canvases at home, and access to the workshop was closed for several months. So, I tried drawing on a tablet. At first, it was unusual and strange. Then, I came up with the idea to redraw one of my silky abstract paintings but do it as graphically as possible, using only lines and color spots. This activity fascinated me so much that after a while I completely forgot about the negative state and plunged into a completely new creative process for me. After telling this story to my family, I printed out several colorless illustrations for them and offered to paint them. Surprisingly, each of the participants also noted that my drawings seem to calm down, bring maximum relaxation. This story once again proved to me that art is unique. It can do a lot, it calms and puts thoughts in order. Especially when there is nothing around that would bring at least some specificity.
-Lockdown in 2020 hit my creative inspiration hard enough. More precisely, in painting. I found new ways in art in various classes and projects I worked on in 2020. But the process of creating abstract silk canvases left me for a long time. I understood that this was a very long pause and it might not be so easy to return to painting, however, I decided to do everything intuitively and not prepare myself for the work process. So, one day in the spring of 2021, I just came to the workshop, opened the surprisingly still undamaged paint, and started working on a Water lily. It was important for me to do everything as intuitively as possible. Without any preparation. I wanted to reflect on this period, the moment, and my thoughts on it. Thus, after a rather difficult year, many experiences and negativity, such bright and good work turned out. Probably, sometimes you just don’t need to invest in a conceptual series and hundreds of thoughts on exciting topics. You just have to do everything intuitively.
– In 2019, I start researching a variety of new painting techniques. Thanks to them, I was finally able to get closer to the topic of independent development of nature without human intervention. Of course, at that time I had no idea that the best example of how quickly nature can rehabilitate after man would be the global lockdown in 2020, but my research also gave a very interesting result. The last job I started working on before the lockdown was “Autumn”. It was unfinished. Usually, this technique involves the creation of several colored layers, but in this work, they are much fewer. I just applied the right mixture to the canvas, went home, and came back a few months later. During this time, not only this but also some other works, which I didn’t fix with varnish, changed. It looks like they come to life. They became different, looks like I was made them, but completely independent, with new texture and color elements. I was very fascinated by this phenomenon. The pictures that told stories about wildlife living began to change and improve without my participation. In this way, lockdown helped me to realize that sometimes the best solution is not to make unnecessary movements. It’s not just about art.
I loved to create something with my own hands: to draw, sculpt, mix and create something physical that can be touched since childhood. Remember the day I seeing the first drawing program. In a seconds you could try many new tools, imitations of different colors and textures. I could draw in this programs maximum of an hour, then it got boring and I picked up real pencils.
As time went on, I worked as a graphic designer on several projects. I used tablet and graphic pan and even start to feel free with the fact that whole work process is observed only through the monitor screen. But the love to create something physical by hands was bigger. However, no. No matter how many hours I spent at work, I always wanted to take a liner with a sketchbook and draw.
Time passed, work with paint and huge canvas came to the first place. Graphic past sometimes reminded itself of small projects.
The spring of 2020 came, there was a lot of work, preparation for several serious personal art projects, completion of a new series of paintings and many other interesting things. If someone told me that next week everything I had planned, created and worked would have to be postponed for an unknown period of time – I would never believe in it. However, this is exactly what happened. It was a really difficult period, there was a burnout, a constant state of depression, apathy… I really didn’t want to draw anything for the first time in many years. I really tried to do something but nothing worked. Gradually, I started drawing on a tablet. This process fascinated me so much, that I spend other days with tablet, creating new graphic illustrations. I always lacked something alive, real in digital illustrations, so I decided to try redraw my abstract paintings, but do it as graphically as possible. Thus, a small series of works came out and that became a real discovery for me. After finishing some abstract illustrations, I decided to share my idea with my family. I printing colorless illustrations, and gave each of my relatives this sheet. The idea was that they can colored this illustration as they want. It was a really great idea. Each of the sheets was incredible and unique. All participants noted that the process of painting had a positive effect on them. They became much calmer, even happier. It seemed to be something like anti-stress. Now I understand that having left all the plans and projects, the opportunity to work in the workshop and create something familiar, I seemed to turn the page. And the next reversal became a really new chapter in my creative path. Creating illustrations helped me not to get lost in my own thoughts and experiences. And gave my relatives a lot of positive emotions.
Thus, even the most unpredictable situations can show us new interests and skills that over time can help us cope faster with inner experiences. One of the ideas of my research is to give the viewer the opportunity to take part in it as well. At the opening of the project, viewers will have the opportunity to take prints of black and white illustrations of my drawings and paint them at home. I will be glad if this activity will lift their spirits or calm them down on a difficult day.
Art project #365daysafter