This oil painting poignantly depicts a Ukrainian woman emerging from war, not just as a soldier, but as a symbol of resilience.
Her face fills the canvas: young but hardened. Her piercing blue eyes look straight at the viewer full of determination, pain, and something deeper still: a quiet, unyielding strength. Her cheeks are stained, her lips slightly open, and blonde locks blow wildly across her face as if the wind of a just-ended battle still hangs in her hair.
She wears a bulletproof vest, crudely and heavily painted in thick, expressive brushstrokes. It does not seem like an ordinary uniform, but a visual burden something she carries with her, both literally and figuratively.
A gun belt runs across her chest, the weapon itself partly hidden, not in the foreground. For that is her she is the centre. The war is part of her, but does not define her.
The background is an abstract mix of grey and blue tones vague enough to suggest both sky and rubble, without overshadowing her powerful presence.
The whole shows a woman caught between devastation and survival. Not vanquished, not triumphant but steadfast. This is not just a portrait of a soldier, but an ode to the spirit of those coming out of war: scarred but unbroken.
Created by Joeri Kassenaar with support from AI.