Image: Victoria Art Gallery, Bath
The Victoria Art Gallery is displaying 20 Icons at the top of the staircase and in the First Floor Rotunda in a free-to-enter exhibition. All works are for sale, with proceeds going towards frontline medical aid in Ukraine.
The project was created by Kyiv-based artists Sonya Atlantova, Oleksandr Klymenko and Herman Klymenko. Since 2015, the artists have painted religious icons onto fragments of ammunition boxes brought back from frontlines of combat zones in the Ukrainian-Russian war. Christian icons symbolize life in Ukrainian culture, and through their paintings the artists transform a symbol of death into a symbol of hope.
One featured work is ‘The Passionate Icon of the Mother of God’, made in 2019 on the bottom of an ammunition box brought from Avdiivka’s industrial area by medical volunteers. The Icons have previously been exhibited in political, cultural and religious institutions worldwide and continue to tour, raising awareness and support towards humanitarian initiatives. The exhibition is supported by Guildford Chantries Rotary, Friends of Oleksandriya, Kyiv Capital Rotary and PelicanLive.
