I created a series of images depicting Ukrainian poets and writers that move beyond traditional portraiture, deliberately ignoring facial features. Instead, the canvases present smiling shadows — emotional recollections of living individuals. We are not our faces in photographs, nor are we defined by the exact date of our birth. We are what we leave behind for the world.

This is especially true for Ukrainian creative figures, whose lives were often marked by trials, discrimination, and threats from oppressors. The good they produced has the power to make a difference for others. For this reason, the paintings represent a symbolic reality, woven from the most significant images of their creative work and pivotal moments in their lives.

Each painting becomes a complex weave of meanings, forming not merely a portrait but rather a “personification of creativity” — a kind of “icon” of a poet’s or writer’s literary legacy.