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Tamara Safarova
Artist from Ukraine
Tamara Safarova (b. 1992) is a Ukrainian artist of Azerbaijani origin who lives and works in Kyiv, Ukraine. She started her artistic career in 2022 in response to russia full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Working across painting, graphics, comics, photography, digital media, and performance, Safarova explores themes of identity, memory, cultural heritage, gender, trauma and transformation.
Her work seeks to expose the invisible: making internalised experiences and collective silences visible, felt, and shared. Mythology, personal history, and symbolic archetypes form the core of her artistic vocabulary.
Safarova’s visual language often bridges the deeply personal with the mythic and the political, grounded in both the natural world and the layered cultural context of post-soviet and postcolonial experiences.
Her first solo exhibition took place in 2022 at the Kunstmuseum in Stuttgart, Germany. Since then, her work has been shown internationally, including at Santa Maria delle Grazie (Venice, Italy), Kühlhaus (Berlin, Germany), the National Museum of Ukrainian Folk Decorative Art (Kyiv, Ukraine), Mystetskyi Arsenal (Kyiv, Ukraine), and Poltava Art Museum (Poltava, Ukraine).
Her works are held in public collections in Italy, Belgium, and Ukraine.
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One second before
Painting by Tamara Safarova
45 x 35 cm • Oil on canvas
Location:
Kyiv, Ukraine
In this painting, I seek to convey the sense of an ongoing and relentless war. War is here and now, surrounding us.
A reminder of this for me is the shell casing from the battlefield.
The foreign object sits at the heart of my country, in my home.
I envisioned its dynamics and form in the final moment before it became a shell casing.
With a burst of intense flame, it propels towards its target.
A flame akin to the heroic warriors who cleanse our homeland of invaders.
The red flesh of the enemy absorbs the essence of this shell casing, stripping it of its meaning.
Through art, I give it the power to convey a message for future generations.
This painting is meant to remind us that every enemy will be defeated and to honor those who sacrifice their lives for our freedom.
Location:
Kyiv, Ukraine
About the artist
Tamara Safarova
Artist from Ukraine
Tamara Safarova (b. 1992) is a Ukrainian artist of Azerbaijani origin who lives and works in Kyiv, Ukraine. She started her artistic career in 2022 in response to russia full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Working across painting, graphics, comics, photography, digital media, and performance, Safarova explores themes of identity, memory, cultural heritage, gender, trauma and transformation.
Her work seeks to expose the invisible: making internalised experiences and collective silences visible, felt, and shared. Mythology, personal history, and symbolic archetypes form the core of her artistic vocabulary.
Safarova’s visual language often bridges the deeply personal with the mythic and the political, grounded in both the natural world and the layered cultural context of post-soviet and postcolonial experiences.
Her first solo exhibition took place in 2022 at the Kunstmuseum in Stuttgart, Germany. Since then, her work has been shown internationally, including at Santa Maria delle Grazie (Venice, Italy), Kühlhaus (Berlin, Germany), the National Museum of Ukrainian Folk Decorative Art (Kyiv, Ukraine), Mystetskyi Arsenal (Kyiv, Ukraine), and Poltava Art Museum (Poltava, Ukraine).
Her works are held in public collections in Italy, Belgium, and Ukraine.
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Contribute your perspective to the community & earn rewards. Leave your reflection below.
