BIO

My name is Olha Lisowska. I work mainly as a freelance book and editorial illustrator. In 2013, I graduated from the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts, Faculty of Graphics. I really fell in love with graphics, so I still continue to practice various types of it. Also I combine my career as an illustrator with exhibition activities as an graphic artist. I participated in group and personal exhibitions in Ukraine, Europe and the USA. I work with things which immediately surrounds me. My works are a collage of banal everyday things, childhood memories, subconscious images and fears. I rarely do things with a clear narrative, these are rather irrational stories about creating an atmosphere and a space that lives by its own laws. The project I worked on during the Artists At Risk residency, the picture book Wolf Swarm, was selected for the Bologna Choldren’s Book Fair this year. This picturebook tells the story of a girl who is chased by wolves, which is a metaphor for living with depression. I’m still working on it (about 80 pages planned).

Story of experience of risk, relocation and/or exile

I am an artist from Kharkiv. Currently, I live in Kyiv because of the full-scale invasion of russia, because Kharkiv suffers a lot from shelling. On March 12, 2022, I left for Gdansk, Poland, lived there for 7 months, but returned because I missed Ukraine very much.

Projects created during the residency period