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- Absence of Home, from the series “Ultra-Naïveté”
Synytsia Karina
The body retains memories associated with experienced trauma or stress. At the same time, the very process of living through such experiences can take different forms. It is impossible to remain in a state of tension for so long and with such intensity. Yet, to prevent the mind from returning to this figure of experience, various defense mechanisms may be triggered — for example, hysterical laughter when speaking about trauma, the “numbing” of sensations, the conscious avoidance of conversations about the event, repetitive actions in daily life, or routinization.
Safety and the sense of protection are integral attributes of corporeality — ones that people are deprived of every moment during war. The gradual loss of empathy and awareness of what is happening, as well as fatigue from the constant flow of information, can be extremely dangerous for those living in a reality afflicted by war.
Born in 1999 in Sievierodonetsk, Luhansk region, she graduated from Kharkiv Art School in 2019 with a specialization in painting instruction. In 2023, she received her Bachelor’s degree from the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture (NAOMA) in Kyiv, specializing in easel and monumental painting. She currently lives and works in Kyiv.
In her artistic practice, she works with painting, collage, animation, and embroidery. Her works depict architectural structures and landscapes, emphasizing emptiness, fragility, and decay within these spaces and objects. At the same time, the architectural elements function as stage sets of the urban environment, while the true focus of her work lies in rendering human emotions, psychological states, and social dimensions of life.
Her works have been featured in the second edition of the Ukrainian section of Secondary Archive, as well as in the archival projects The Sky Is Open. Voices From Ukraine and Ukraine in Flames (Small Gallery of Mystetskyi Arsenal). She has participated in group exhibitions such as Secondary Archive: Women Artists in War (Galeria Labirynt, Lublin), A Sense of Security (YermilovCentre, Kharkiv), and in her solo exhibition It Is Impossible to Restore Cracks in a Dried Layer (Galeria Labirynt, Lublin). She also took part in residencies, including Ukrainian Ecologies (by IZOLYATSIA and the Ukrainian Environmental Humanities Network) and the Residency for Ukrainian Feminist Artists (initiated by Martin Roth), among others.
