prayers for peace

 

Have you ever been in a plane when it suddenly drops ten meters? There is a void, a dramatic difference in pressure due to a gust. It is why people who travel every day for a living advise keeping your seatbelt on at all times. There is a word for what makes for a bumpy ride. For artist Alex Nodopaka, 2022 has been a year of turbulence. The above is his artwork sent to me on September 11th, titled Selfie Trading Card. As I started to upload it and saw the much smaller thumbnail, his head and shoulders and unhappy face became obvious. Many times this year he has confided in me that he felt in desperate need of a happy pill. None of the anxiety meds were sufficient. 

Alex also sent this expressive seashore cliffs artwork on September 11. I wonder if he contemplated jumping into the mysterious. 

Knowing the artist pretty well, I dare say it is not the morbidity of aging or facing his mortality that is at the heart of his high anxiety this year. It is what Russians are doing to Ukrainians. Alex is both Russian and Ukrainian, and it breaks his heart, it strains his mind, it wearies his spirit. He has family in Kiev. He is from Ukraine, though born in Russia, and this duality has been his identity since his family fled due to war, a traumatic childhood event he does not like to remember, and only briefly opened up about while I was writing his bio. 

Alexandre Nodopaka was made in Kiev and subsequently, by sheer accident, delivered in Vladivostok due to travel. Besides speaking pig Latin San Franciscan, he mumbles in exquisite Muscovite, Kievan & Parisian. He studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Casablanca, Morocco. Now full time author, artist in the USA. His interests in the visual arts and literature are widely multi-cultural though he considers his past irrelevant. 

Except his past became terribly relevant this year when Putin declared war on Ukraine. 

In a normal year, Alex would be creating art nearly every day, submitting it to online journals of artistry, and as his publication record shows, his artwork would be featured in several. Since the news of the war broke, his creative energy has hit a low I have never seen in the 19 years since I first began following this poet/author/artist. Last night, he sent a link to his latest publication, two works of art featured on pages 21 and 22 in Issue 10 of the RAW Journal of Art. 

Even for those who have not studied or followed this artist, this soul-searching imagery begs the question. What the fuck, Putin? Why are you tearing lives apart? And the duality of the Ukrainian-Russian artist is captivated in the way the eyes are divided and distinctive, on the left and right hand, in the left and right brain. Ukrainian and Russian. In gazing into this artwork, I feel the turmoil of the war.  In the second image, the eyes convey shock, anger, horror, and the wolf head between the eyes compels deep consideration.

Other than these publications, Alex created one work of art that he shared with me in this most difficult year. 

In this metaphorical collage, I see a desperate prayer. 

🕊