Eye Sea Gallery

This is a childhood memory – a view from my secret tree. At first, I hid there to smoke, because nine-year-olds are not allowed to smoke. And then, even if I didn’t have cigarettes, I would climb it, because that tree became my safe space. There I could hear everything that was bothering me from the inside. In adulthood, such places are very difficult to find. These works exist so that just by looking at them for a moment, I could close my eyes and at least for a while get into my own safe space and take a break from the harsh reality.
For the second year I have been forcibly separated from my family.
For the second year I have been conducting endless dialogues with myself, justifying myself, then blaming myself, and so on in a circle. I have a psychological disorder on the background of loneliness, a feeling of inactivity, personal inferiority, and unrealized love and sexuality increasingly actively deplete my inner resources. I was lucky. I was lucky to live in the technological era of remote communication with my relatives, but it’s all the same as feeding a person with candies only.
I was lucky to immerse myself in art, to make it my companion, a spontaneous and non-linear dimension with a relieved experience of reality.
The presented works are my personal struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder caused by the war. I say “mine”, but I mean the horrifying number of people who have suffered the same injuries.
War is the destructive reality of today. In addition to destruction, it brings with it the emotional transformation of society.
Longing for loved ones, anxiety and public grief will have long-term psychological consequences. Will there be enough mental strength to pass this horror through oneself? Probably for some, but there will also be those who will live the rest of their lives with an open wound.
A conscious society should work to support those who need it, to support the dialogue about people who have experienced suffering, and about those who continue to live in endless horror.

These reflections became the basis for Mykhailo Tarasenko’s series “View from the Tree: Safe Space.”

Exhibition at Eye Sea Gallery runs from April 12 to May 1, 2024.

Feel free to contact our gallery if you are interested in purchasing the artworks.