Ukraine Conflict

I have started a new project looking at the recent conflict in Ukraine. Using the footage and photography as a starting point I have started to make images which show the situation in the cold and detached style I have come to develop. This image looks at a hotel lobby nearby to Maiden square on the day of the bloody clash between the police and anti-government protestors. Taking from footage from BBC news I have shown the bodies laying on the shiny floor covered in a sheet. It is the sheet that stops this image from being to graphic. I have put in a small amount of blood so as to make clear that it is a body under the cloth, but I feel that this may be a bit much. I think that the aesthetic of the hotel makes this feel more familiar to people as it looks part of the western world and brings the issue closer to home. This image is of a building that has been damaged by shelling, I think I could have put a little more time into this image as it is a little crude. While the colour is typical of the war torn buildings, I think that more detail and sharpness would have made the image more convincing. I should have probably also tried to make the tiles straighter as that would have created a greater feeling of solidity. This cross is one held up by the orthodox ministers standing in-between the two waring sides calling for peace. While I feel this image does give across an emption quite well with its clear symbolism and eastern european style, I think the painting could do with some work. The shapes are distorted and the highlights are inconsistent, this problem mainly arose from the very low resolution images which I worked from. The paintings on the cross are also very crude, while they are meant to be painted in a medieval style they still lack detail but this would have been tricky working at the size I was. Showing the wreckage of the MH17 passenger flight which was shot down over Ukraine, this image creates a very grey landscape. It doesn’t show any of the human aspect of the incident, leaving that to the viewers imagination, on how the people could factor into this desolate situation. I find that the conversation works fairly well in this image but maybe the painting could be less washy.

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