Ukraine heartbreak hits home

COEUR d’ALENE — The world that Ukrainian artist Yaroslav Leonets observed and translated into beautiful paintings has disappeared.

“I always sought to show something beautiful and real,” he wrote in a letter. “The land I once painted is now desolate, smoking ash. The people I would draw are gone.”

Leonets, a young modern artist, is moving from bomb shelter to bomb shelter in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv as Russian forces ravage his homeland.

The war might be 5,400 miles from North Idaho, but Leonets’ works are hanging in Art Spirit Gallery at 415 Sherman Ave., tightening the connection between the people of Coeur d’Alene and those fighting for their lives half a world away.

It was serendipitous how Art Spirit happened upon Leonets’ works, and spine-chillingly coincidental how his paintings were hung just as war broke out in Ukraine.

Curator Perris Richey found his art on Instagram and contacted him in December.

“The series that caught my eye was a family series,” she said. “It was the circle of life, from birth to death. Then he just showed us his perspective of Ukraine. He was born there. The way he described it was he just paints the life around him — figures, landscapes. That’s how he communicates with the world.”

No one could have known that when his oil paintings went on display in Coeur d’Alene, he and his loved ones would be in hiding.

“My family and I have become hostages of this situation, like the whole country,” Leonets wrote. “I've never seen anything like it and wouldn't wish it on anyone. War is horror. War is murder, bloodshed, fear and destruction. When you watch a movie about war, you do not fully understand it.”

Art Spirit gallery owner Blair Williams said that after his paintings went up, she and her staff were moved to tears.

“We’re standing in front of a connection to history,” she said. “We feel this deep connection now to somebody who is immersed in this war in the world that we didn’t know we’d have this deeper connection with.”

Richey said she's been keeping in touch with Leonets.

“He said he’s OK. They have just been moving every single hour,” she said. “He said the kindergartens are bombed. When you walk out into the street it’s just rubble.”

Leonets’ piece called “Children” depicts kids playing in a grassy park with shady trees.

“And to think that brightness does not currently exist in that country is deeply upsetting," Williams said.

Richey said what's a little strange is that it was difficult to find some of the brighter pieces in his work.

“It was revolving around family and revolving around life and death, not much in between,” she said. “All of it is kind of heavy stuff, before we knew what was coming. Now that it’s here, it’s even more heart-wrenching.”

The show opens at 11 a.m. Saturday. Richey said she hopes it will motivate locals to be involved and share their support of Ukraine.

A bench has been placed in front of his pieces to give people a place to rest as they process the art and take to heart the devastation the artist and his fellow countrymen are experiencing.

“We feel so far removed, but we’re not,” Richey said. “I just want this to be a call to action where we feel it just as easily as the citizens of that country."

Art Spirit Gallery will not take any commissions from any of Leonets’ works that are sold. All profits will be sent to him.

“Unfortunately, war is very easy for some people to talk about. Unfortunately, many people believe that there is nothing serious in this. Unfortunately, many people think that everything will be quickly forgotten and will pass, that this land will recover. But no, no it will not,” Leonets wrote.

"It is very difficult for me to talk about this because I see with my own eyes the destruction, I see how fear of death kills people who must hide in the subway or somewhere in shelters. I see how peaceful people are dying. I feel sorry for the murdered children, I feel sorry for the people wrecked by bombings, I feel sorry for the houses that were hit by rockets, whose owners may never live to see the remnants.

"It is hard for me to look at the destroyed streets, hospitals, schools and kindergartens. It is hard for me to watch how my people try to escape from the war, who are forced to flee from their homes, never knowing if they will return.”