Tania Belashchuk (UKR)

The pandemic time provides for me a lot of opportunities and it’s the most productive time in my art career.

I received a very positive influence during the lockdown.

I live in the small far village, here I almost didn’t feel the pandemic, I’m free here.

I dedicate all my time to find my way in the art after recently graduating from the Academy of Arts, what themes inspire me, what important to me. Nature became my the biggest source, I went to many plein airs, my first pandemic paintings were in watercolor. Then I invented slime paint which is a kind of unusual material. Slime is a popular children’s anti-stress toy for hands. I gave a new meaning to this viscous material, translated it from the plane of art. I created a series of slime artworks which I combine with a bas-relief.

The main theme is ‘Nature is a workshop an eternal exemplar of art’ where I depicted the value of nature in our life because I want to encourage peoples to preserve and protect nature. Subsequently, I realized that I use a lot of art materials and only paint, but I always wanted to be useful for ecology. It was my goal and dream as an artist.

First I started to not throw out the paper and plastic rubbish, but collect it, after I grind it and these materials use for creating sculptures. And of course, I combine them with slime – my favorite material. The theme of this series from recycled material is ‘Underwater world’. I love freediving and I observe the life of underwater inhabitants, swimming with fish, corals. I worried about our Anthropocene age in which we live this period needs to be not an ecological catastrophe, but vice versa we can try to protect nature, the underwater world from rubbish and human activities.