About the series

Papa, Is It Going to Be a War? is an antiwar series of drawings and two paintings created in response to the terrible events of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the multiplying horrors of which have spread way beyond the two countries involved. The body of work, produced as a peaceful protest and also as an antiwar statement, features the subject of war seen through the eyes of a child. 

This series is different in subject from my usual work, but shares the same visual approach. A child's point of view is very personal to me because I remember myself so well as a child. It's easy to relate to the feelings of helplessness and fear a little person experiences in a war zone. Unwillingly involved, children are the ultimate and most unjustified victims of war. For a child, war doesn't make any sense, as it shouldn't for anyone. Wars not only hurt our present but through children, who are hurt for life, affect the future.

No war should be portrayed as glorious, great or holy, anywhere in the world. No war is justified. 

There is nothing heroic about wars. There are heroes of war, but only because there are still wars. While still paying my respect to the bravery of veterans, I have always hated stories about war heroes, because I didn't believe them. I never believed in the notion of facing the distractions of war courageously as if it was the only possible thing to do. It is normal to fear, to run, to dream of escaping war at any cost. It's human. War is the most unnatural state for people, the most devastating. At the same time it can be produced with such careless ease, while to preserve peace seems the hardest task. 

War is the most undignified, low, and terrible thing that has ever been created by people, and any ruler of any country should be ashamed of starting one. Modern rulers don't even take war bullets or have the fear of being buried under the ruins of a bombed house. How could they? They are needed to guide military campaigns - they are well protected. It is all just a chess game. The casualties of war are somewhere else, far enough to think of them as of little cardboard figurines. 

How can we as humankind talk about the progress of our age if there are still wars in the world? No idea, no religion and no difference between people are worth killing each other. 

People of the same country hate and fight each other over the choice of the political party they vote for. People of the same religion can't find the middle ground when it comes to the differences between sects. We can't accept each other's differences when it comes to tastes, values, language, ethnicity and even gender perception. Snobbism and xenophobia are solid bases for any future wars, and in light of the current events we are about to produce an abundance of both...