Creative Forces is an art showcase supported by LifeWithArt that includes artwork developed by the Ukrainian displaced community group over the last 6 months. The group got together every Friday between April and September 2023 to explore different ways of creative expression and experimenting with various mediums. The show consists of selected work from 5 art projects described below.

  1. Reestablishing creative connection. Warming up project. April-May 2023

It is often intimidating to start working as a group on something new. Although some artists from our group knew each other from previous creative community learning projects, we regularly have new joiners and the location was completely new as well. On top of everything, when we started, it was one of the most stressful periods for many our participants due to MS Victoria ship leaving Leith that provided a temporary home to more than 1,000 of Ukrainians fleeing the war. So the question for many was ‘Can I afford creativity and art me time while there is massive uncertainty about even basic needs of physical survival?’ Instead of debating these challenging questions intellectually, the artists dived into visual way to communicate their challenges, needs and dreams. To switch the busy minds off and activate senses, various visual exercises have been performed, one of which was using collage as a communication tool. Artists assembled them individually and discussed in groups their concepts that became a foundation for later projects.

  1. What am I feeling? Mixed Media project – May-June 2023

Artists received The Box of Emotions as a prompt to pull a card representing a random emotion as a starting point. The next stage included series of visual exercises to reflect on the emotions that they received and link them with feelings that artists have recently experienced. After a series of visual experiments, Artists had being given MDF as a surface and a suggestion to collect objects in their surroundings that would potentially help to transform their emotions and feelings to a new state of beginning.

  1. The charcoal moves. Improvised performance followed by drawing –June – July 2023

Inspired by artist Gabriel Schmitz, Artists explored potential of working across drawing and movement. They went through a series of initial facilitated body moves discovering points of physical connection with each other. The group then was divided into two: dancers and drawers. The soundtrack informed the dancers to improvise with their moves while those who drew were encouraged to capture the energy behind the dance. The groups were eventually swapped so the dancers became drawers and vice versa.

  1. Printing multiple realities. Introduction to printmaking. July – August 2023

Printmaking is not a popular practice in Ukrainian contemporary art as in Scotland, so this was an unknown medium for most of our group. Selected artworks exhibited  included visual experiments as follows:

  • Monochromic monoprints exploring textures
  • Planet art prints discovering easy scratch plates and dry point
  • Nature inspired prints with collected plants

 

  1. Colours and their characters. Visual art project. September 2023

This is our recently launched project when each of the sessions is dedicated to explore a particular colour. Each class begins with a small presentation by Alena or Jenny sharing some curious history about the chosen colour. Artists then experiment with different techniques to develop their visual responses reimagining colours as characters. Selected artwork from the sessions about Orange, Green and Blue.

  • Drawing with soft pastels on paper. Individually and collaboratively developing each others’ ideas
  • Drawing with ink on paper.
  • Blue. Drawing with fabric ink on silk.