Faces that tell a story of Ukrainian resilience

WHEN Russia escalated its invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, Saltash artist Louise Pasterfield felt she had to do something. Angry that this war should even be happening and upset by the footage we were seeing on our TVs, newspapers and social media, she picked up her brushes and started to paint the faces of Ukraine, inspired by those images.

- JANET KING

Her first portrait was of a Ukrainian woman called Valentina, whose back yard had just been hit by artillery. Louise posted it on Instagram four days after the invasion.

Little did she know the impact her portraits would have. Right from that first painting, the response was overwhelming. She started to get messages from the wives, mothers, daughters, husbands, fathers, sons, and friends of the people she'd painted. They wanted to thank her for "not forgetting" about Ukraine, and to ask if they could have prints of the paintings. Some of her paintings were also featured online by Vogue UA, Elle UA and Ukraine Artists on Instagram.

And then, something quite remarkable happened: "Ukrainians have been sending me photographs they have taken, asking if I would paint them," said Louise. "One woman sent me a photo that she took of her two-year-old daughter on the second day of the war. It was taken in the basement of their house in the Kharkiv region. They had no electricity, no heating, no water and outside, the Russian army was all around them. In the photograph, her daughter is painting by candlelight, wrapped up against the cold.

"Other people have sent me photos of family members who have died in the war. One woman sent me a photo of her father who died near Bakhmut, asking me if I could paint it. That was very moving." Louise spotted a video on social media of one of the defenders of Mariupol being reunited with his wife after he was released from Russian captivity. Her painting of the couple, inspired by the short clip, brought this message from the woman: "You have painted one of the most important moments of my life."