Scenes from a Nightmare

The series brings together works created in 2022–2023, in response to the war in Ukraine. All of the works are closely connected to my experience of witnessing these events and to the feelings of pain and horror they produced. War is the most terrifying and absurd thing imaginable.

The Field of Experiments, created in Sweden in early 2022, forms a central part of the series. These watercolours emerged as a direct response to the invasion of Ukraine and the atrocities committed there. They depict cold, desolate landscapes — concrete walls, ruined housing estates, abandoned television sets in the snow. The works function both as studies for larger paintings and as an immediate, personal record of a nightmare unfolding in real time.

The title refers to the song Russian Fields of Experiments by the Soviet/Russian rock band GrOb (Civil Defense), written in 1988. In the song, the Russian landscape appears as a testing ground for terrifying historical experiments. Today, this metaphor has become disturbingly literal.

These works exist in a space between memory and nightmare. The war feels unimaginable, yet its consequences are devastatingly real. Each morning, for a brief moment after waking, there is an illusion of normality — before the horror returns.