The Danube River in Bratislava. (source: Courtesy of T. D.)
This story is also available in Ukrainian and Slovak.
For Ukrainian painter and old architecture enthusiast Tetiana Didenko, Bratislava feels like a fairy tale full of inspiration and fascination.
“I’ve been fascinated by ancient architecture all my life and here, it's right in front of my eyes,” the 58-year-old artist says. “When I look at the tiled roofs in the city’s Old Town, all the antique buildings, I return to my childhood, to the old fairy tales that I grew up on.”
The artist, for whom the Slovak capital became a temporary home after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, can be spotted with her easel and her brushes in the narrow old streets when the weather is nice as she tries to capture the beauty of the city. Some of her works, including a Vrakuňa park, already hang on the walls in the Drak & Finch bar a stone’s throw from Bratislava Castle. Reminiscent of a window into the world of colours and sunshine where harmony reigns in all senses, they invite bar visitors to set out on a walk through the city and explore their secrets.
The fact that the local bar decided to exhibit the Bratislava works of this renowned Ukrainian artist, albeit unknown to many in Slovakia, is a coincidence.
“I once painted nearby and stopped in the bar, sometimes leaving my things there,” the painter tells The Slovak Spectator.
But this is not the first time her paintings are exhibited abroad, including in Slovakia. Over the years, Didenko’s works, ranging from flowers and landscapes to portraits, have been on display and purchased by art collectors all over the world, from Mexico to Russia.
Farská Street in Bratislava. (source: Courtesy of T. D.)
In love with Ukrainian impressionism
Born in Donetsk, a city in southeastern Ukraine, and raised in Kyiv, Didenko says that she often visited exhibitions, admired paintings and imagined what kind of persons created them.
Her artistic life fully began after graduating from Kyiv art schools. She describes her art as a classical style of painting with some elements of impressionism.
“I admire Ukrainian impressionists like Oleksandr Murashko and Vasyl Krychevsky. They have always been a source of inspiration for me,” the Ukrainian reveals, adding that she also likes Ukrainian artists of more recent times such as and , “I like to look at their works, I adore them.”
Looking back at a time when a young Didenko just admired paintings in art museums without being familiar with and diving into the life stories of these Ukrainian artists, which later changed, she now says that she is glad that most of her assumptions about the artists turned out to be correct.
Helping others discover painters in themselves
Didenko’s fruitful career in Ukraine at first seemed to stop after Russia’s invasion of her motherland.
She decided to flee Ukraine and move to Slovakia where her daughter, Dana, studied and lived. But this was not the only reason why she chose Slovakia. Before the war, she had taken part in Days of Ukraine, a cultural event held in Košice.
Because her daughter lived in Poprad, Tatras region, and the artist found herself in Košice, she had no place to stay. Fortunately, at the local railway station she encountered a family that provided her with a shelter. Didenko stayed with them for seven months before she moved to Bratislava. Thanks to the artistic family, she joined the local creative community.
In Košice, she co-founded Estet, an international aesthetics education studio, with her friend Natalia Oleksandrova. The Ukrainian ran the children’s dance group Harmony. “The main goal is to provide lessons such as dancing and drawing to children, both Ukrainian and Slovak,” Didenko says about the centre. The studio is also intended to bring the cultures of Ukrainians and Slovaks closer. When they opened it, Didenko also used the opportunity to exhibit some of her paintings again. But this time, some of these paintings were new. The artist painted them during her time in Košice.
In Bratislava, the artist now and then teaches painting to elderly women at the Ukrainian-Slovak Cultural House.
“I’m surprised that people who have never painted before are so good at it,” she says.
Bratislava's Old Town. (source: Courtesy of T. D.)
Irpin pictures
Prior to her relocation to Bratislava, the Ukrainian painter decided to move back to Kyiv and planned to stay there. It was the end of 2022. But the constant shelling, she says, made her reassess her plan in the end.
Her daughter had moved to Bratislava by then.
Today, they live together in the Slovak capital. Still, the artist hopes that she can return home one day.
“At the beginning of the war, when I just came to Slovakia, I had created a few graphic pictures. They are scary. They are about Irpin,” the artist says.
Soon after the war broke out, there began the month-long battle of Irpin, a town of 70,000 near Kyiv. The Ukrainians managed to defeat Russian units in this battle and retake control of the town. The battle was heavily discussed in the media in early March of 2022, when the Russians began to shell a bridge that civilians were using to flee Irpin.
“It’s extremely difficult for me to live through such sad moments,” the artist says. Therefore, Didenko has returned to portraying positive things such as landscapes. “I mostly draw life as it is. I draw inspiration from nature, because everything in it is so complicated and interesting that there is no need to add anything else,” the Ukrainian notes.
Bratislava. (source: Courtesy of T. D.)
Despite war, life must go on
These days, Didenko is already working on another exhibition in Bratislava. It will be held in another cafe. She says she has selected landscape paintings that capture the Old Town from different perspectives.
However, the Ukrainian says that she doesn’t like to stay in one place a long time. Thus, she intends to attend an event for painters in Macedonia and visit friends in Serbia.
“Maybe I will work a little in Montenegro. I visited this year and fell in love with Petrovac [a small coastal town]. There are incredible landscapes,” she shares with The Slovak Spectator.
Didenko says that in the past two years she has been painting and moving from one place to another more than at any time of peace. Today, the painter says that she is prepared to head towards any place life takes her to.
“Despite everything, we have to hope for the best and live on,” Didenko thinks.
However, the war is often on her mind. The artist’s sister has been staying in Kyiv.
“Thoughts about the war are always with me. I feel them as a dark background regardless of the brightness of the colours in the foreground,” Didenko says.
This article was created thanks to the UNESCO programme "Supporting Ukrainian Refugees Through Mass Media", financed by the Japanese government.
