ESTER PETUKHOVA AUCTIONS WORK TO BENEFIT SAVE THE CHILDREN, UKRAINE
Rising senior at Carnegie Mellon University, Ester Petukhova (b. 2000, Vologda, Russia) is selling her painting, Evidence of Survival: Slovyansk, Ukraine (A Portrait of My Uncle Who is Alive and Free), to raise funds for Save the Children, Ukraine – an organization that has been operating in Ukraine since 2014. The work is included in Artsy’s June Contemporary Art Auction, alongside works by Issy Wood, Matthew Wong, Sarah Slappey, Julie Mehretu and Eddie Martinez, among others. The online sale opened today and closes bidding on June 28th, 2022. The estimate for the work is $1,000-2,000, with a starting bid of $850.
Having fled Vologda, Russia with her family in 2001, Petukhova has been continuously unraveling her complicated relationship with her family’s own “Russian-ness.” In a flat, graphic style, Petukhova collapses the locality of icons and images from her childhood by slicing images of recognizable consumer goods, appropriated Soviet food catalogs, and girlhood paraphernalia found in popular culture into a kind of eclectic multiverse with delicate social commentary.
In Evidence of Survival: Slovyansk, Ukraine (A Portrait of My Uncle Who is Alive and Free), Petukhova’s Uncle Tolik, who at the time resided in Slovyansk, Ukraine with his family (a wife and four children), is seen balancing a bowl of pears on his head surrounded by jars of pickles and tomatoes—totems of the family’s generous garden. Petukhova soberly recalls countless Skype calls with her aunt and uncle where tables in the background spilled over with fruits and vegetables from the season’s harvest. This past season was their largest harvest yet.
Petukhova began working on this painting, a tender tribute to her uncle, several weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine. When the invasion reached world news on February 24th, Petukhova’s portrait took on new meaning. Becoming more than just a tribute, Uncle Tolik’s portrait transformed into an important relic to the life many families built in Ukraine. Petukhova decided to add the Russian word for freedom in Cyrillic, “Svoboda,” in an optimistic yellow arc.
Two tense weeks passed before Tolik and his family fled Ukraine and headed towards Germany. During those weeks, the family questioned whether they should leave behind the life they built in Ukraine. As of May 2022, it is estimated between 8 to 14 million Ukrainians have fled their home or have been displaced, almost a quarter of the country’s total population.
Ester Petukhova in her studio. Photo by Pablo Anton.
"Save the Children has been operating in Ukraine since 2014, including in the conflict-impacted regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. This includes supporting their access to education, providing psychosocial support, distributing winter kits and hygiene kits, and providing cash grants to families so they can meet basic needs such as food, rent and medicines, or so they can invest in starting new businesses. Our specialist teams are also providing children with access to safe, inclusive, quality education. Together with schools and community centers, we work to help children overcome the mental and psychological impacts of their experiences of conflict and violence and increase their resilience and ability to cope with stresses in their daily lives."