![\"Victoria](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/URQgqHpEH3DiJDN3L7hMT7.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThroughout Ukraine\u2019s rural villages, it\u2019s possible to discover glimmers of a centuries-old tradition \u2013 painted cottages.<\/p>\n
Folk artists, often the home\u2019s matriarch, would surround the doors, windows and thresholds of their humble homes with colourful wreaths of birds, flowers and branches to ward off evil and usher in prosperity and health.<\/p>\n
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An steel panel from the new \u2018Drevo\u2019 series, and an example of the nature-based paintings that inspired it<\/p>\n
(Image credit: Anastasiia Makarchuk)<\/p>\n
Time and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war have threatened these delicate artworks<\/a>. But Ukrainian artist and designer Victoria Yakusha, founder of the brand Faina<\/a>, is looking to honour and preserve the memory of this diminishing artform through a new collection. Called \u2018Drevo\u2019<\/a>, the work reinterprets cottage paintings via a new series of hand-hammered panels.<\/p>\n \u2018All of our grandmas and great-grandmothers painted their houses inside and out. We decided to give our approach to this tradition,\u2019 says Yakusha, who is based between Ukraine and Belgium<\/a>. \u2018The collection is about female strength, it\u2019s about vitality.\u2019<\/p>\n Victoria Yakusha in Ukraine<\/p>\n (Image credit: Anastasiia Makarchuk)<\/p>\n Yakusha looked, in particular, to the traditional homes of Podillia, a historic region in south-eastern Ukraine with roots dating to the 14th century. Because the walls of the thatched cottages were constructed from clay, many original house paintings have not survived. So Yakusha and her team had to rely on images in books, historical records and a single rural house museum. \u2018We wanted to find original house paintings, and we found only one,\u2019 she explains.<\/p>\n She was struck by folk paintings of a tree of life \u2013 drevo zhyttia in Ukrainian \u2013 and used it as an aesthetic through-line for the collection and its namesake.<\/p>\n A panel from the \u2018Drevo\u2019 series<\/p>\n (Image credit: Anastasiia Makarchuk)<\/p>\n Steel, a new material for Yakusha\u2019s practice, felt like an appropriate material to convey the resilience of women and Ukrainian culture. ‘It\u2019s about connection and the passing of knowledge from mother and daughter,\u2019 she says.<\/p>\n Because of the ongoing war, Yakusha had difficulty finding metal workers, most of whom are male, to help realise her pieces; they\u2019d all been drafted. \u2018It\u2019s difficult for us,\u2019 she says. \u2018We only found one man who could do it [because he had completed his military service].\u2019<\/p>\n Installation view of \u2018Drevo\u2019 at the Ukrainian Institute of America in New York<\/p>\n (Image credit: Paul Terrier)<\/p>\n The result is gleaming steel panels \u2013 some no bigger than a book \u2013 embossed with minimal outlines of blooms, birds and leaves. Each panel has a female name, taken from books of historical records. Yakusha says the works can be displayed solo, or in groups, like gleaming icons on walls.<\/p>\n Yakusha has launched Drago as part of a special installation at the Ukrainian Institute of America in New York<\/a> City. In the building\u2019s grand Beaux-Arts rooms, surrounded by mounds of real wildflowers, the work feels haunting, beautiful and urgent.<\/p>\n ‘They put their energy into these houses,’ Yakusha says of the female painters \u2013 a spirit that’s been awakened once again.<\/p>\n![\"Victoria](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/GFrduaxKSpocKPUtLYSGLe.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Victoria](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/rDAPyDwiZKuuz8qLMZeMW8.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Victoria](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/t36jk7H3nH2MFtH9xa7gge.jpg\")
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