My images refer to my personal history and culture, something that I embrace and honor. My desire to explore the concept of fitting together two cultures led me to stage these genre painting-like scenes, using Ukrainian or Russian immigrant models, and making my own costumes, based on traditional Ukrainian fashions of the pasts. I want my work to express my personal love and appreciation for Ukrainian culture, while acknowledging the conflicts I experience also wanting to be a contemporary American woman (complete with a washing machine, Cosmos, cell phone and shopping). I realize that it is not possible for me to completely resolve my conflict between the past and present, Ukraine and America. Leaving one's country for good and assimilating into a different culture is a heart-breaking process of give and take, in which some traditions get left behind and replaced by new ones. My goal is a lighthearted and sometimes humorous expression of my immigrant sense of being, as I and many other Ukrainian immigrants struggle to fit together some aspects of the lives we left behind with the ones we live today.

Fitting Ukraine ~ 2006
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By The Well
Laundry
Sowing
After Work
By The Window
In The Kitchen
Shopping
Getting Water
Washboard
Gossip
Cooking
By The Well Laundry Sowing
After Work By The Window In The Kitchen
Shopping Getting Water Washboard
Gossip Cooking