The story

As I look back in time at my memories to the beginning of my public art journey, I now perceive things differently and can better analyse the impact my art made on society over the years on display.

One of my first biggest significant projects was a 264 sqm size mural on a concrete fence with joint building walls that belong to the municipality in Lambert’s Bay.

In 2016 I was already a mother of a 2-year-old boy, settled in and had even done a few mural commissions for some of the local businesses.

My path to the beach was lead along a long and ugly neglected fence with barbed wire on the top of it.

It was irritating me so much that one day I started imagining how I would transform it if I had an opportunity. This was quite an entertaining process every time I passed the fence pushing the pram for a beach walk.

I had created the whole concept of educational public art in my mind to broaden the local view of the inhabitants on the world.

It was tremendously difficult living as a Ukrainian in a very rural area of South Africa as the local youth thought I sounded like an alien that had fallen from the moon. Most of the people there had never seen foreigners and if any – mostly western tourists like Americans, British and Germans.

At that moment I had an extraordinarily powerful sense of giving the town a window into the open world by painting something they will learn from and better understand the connectivity with other cultures.

Of course, being a Ukrainian I made sure that the local people would also know about my country, Ukraine. It was an important mission for me.

This is how the idea of the Rainbow Cruise was born.

I divided the long fence into small sections representing the basic knowledge and images of 17 different countries of the world. The list of countries was an extremely difficult choice:

 I selected the countries from different continents trying to represent major regions, highlighting the cultural and social diversity of the world. Among them was Ukraine and Russia.

Despite the huge conflict that escalated between the two countries, I did not believe in cancelling culture trend. Russia has a rich history, culture and traditions. In my view people should be educated in the world`s diverse history to better understand the sequence of events.

After a month of walking along the wall I started putting things together on paper as it became immensely difficult to keep everything in my mind. I made a few sketches and created all designs for the joint walls in a continuing illustrative style. A huge map of the world in a rural South African town played a vital role in my design as the story goes: We are exploring the world in our imaginative Rainbow Cruise Boat starting at the harbour in Lambert’s Bay. 

This was all done without informing anyone of my creative ambitions.

I was about to send the proposal to various business groups to support the idea, when one day I received a surprising phone call from the Head officer at the municipality himself!

He offered me as a well-known artist in the town an opportunity to create a mural on those walls! It was my turn to give him a huge surprise by sharing my idea and moreover, presenting my sketches as if I were prepared for this offer!

The agreement was made and financially supported. The municipality workers cleaned and repaired all the cracks on the walls and painted it white as if a canvas to paint on. It took me about a month of consistent work under the seething to cover all of the 264 sqm wall with rainbow colours.

I could have easily finished my story at that point but, in my view the most interesting effects began to unfold shortly after my artwork was accomplished.

There was something mysterious about the art space.

 Besides the expected spark of curiosity among the local people and the achieved goal of the educational impact, I noticed something completely strange. I noticed that the wall was suddenly attracting nationals of countries that had been painted on the it.

It started with an incredibly famous Ukrainian female solo biker, Anna Grechishkina, who was on her around-the-world journey and my town happened to be on her route to Namibia. I invited her to stay with me for a few days and we became good friends. She was delighted to discover my mural with Ukraine featured on it.

Later, the Rainbow Cruise attracted a random Japanese couple making their around-the-world journey. From time to time I was meeting with Egyptian, Indian, Brazilian, Dutch, Australian and Russian people – all were around-the-world travellers! An incredible connection!

Once, in 2019, I was a participant of an extraordinary coincidence. It is worth sharing here.

For about a year I was silently witnessing how one panel of the painted fence was cracking in middle. It would be less remarkable if it were on any other part of the 264 sqm wall but, it was precisely on the Ukrainian theme panel! Moreover, it was right in the middle of our beautiful world renowned yellow and blue flag!

The crack was in the middle and getting worse day by day!

I could not believe how obvious the sign was for me as things had become really bad with the political fighting within my country. Pro-Ukrainian nationalists vs Pro-Russian speaking Ukrainians. The country was literally torn in two and this was clearly shown on my mural by having this horrible dark crack in the middle of my country’s flag.

Strangely enough, I could not really do anything about it for almost a year. I did not feel strong enough to fix it. Also, I was never involved in any political issues of my country and tried to remain neutral. I wanted unity within the country which in my view would be a result of both sides accepting their differences and striving for freedom. I felt helpless.

Until one day I woke up with a strong power of change. Again, it was my known energy flowing over me like a hot shower.

I conjured up a brilliant idea of how to fix it and reached out to one of my male friends, Francois Engelbrecht, a local artist. He immediately got the right tools and with the energy of a world saviour – fixed the crack within one hour!

Once the wound was healed, I repainted the flag and uplifted the whole Ukrainian panel.

Only later that evening I realized that it was it was the 20th of May - the Inauguration Day of Volodymyr Zelensky as the new President of Ukraine.

 How symbolic it was to reunite Ukraine on my mural in South Africa at the same time the President of Ukraine was giving his historical oath to serve the nation.