Icons on Ammo Boxes

Starting on 8th December, we will be hosting an exhibition of icons by the Ukrainian artists Sofia Atlantova and Oleksandr Klymenko. The icons will be for sale and all proceeds will support a new mobile hospital and rehabilitation facility in Ukraine named after the Apostle Luke.

Archimandrite Cyril Hovorun, a Ukrainian theologian who gave a lecture at the University Church earlier this year, writes about the effect of these icons:

These icons are like coins: they have two sides. Not literally two sides painted, as some icons have, but two aspects that make them unique.

First, they are beautiful pieces of art painted by a talented couple of Oleksandr Klymenko and Sofia Atlantova. Stylistically, they blend modern motifs and traditional patterns that go back to Byzantine masters. The second important aspect of this collection is its story. Or better to say, many stories that comprise a single narrative of war and peace, human sufferings and hope. The icons have been painted on wooden planks from ammo boxes. Those boxes were used in the eastern front, where Ukraine is at war with Russia. The icons painted on those boxes thus try to bring hope for peace and justice to the tormented East of the country.

This is not the only story that the icons can tell. Sales from them go to a new mobile hospital and rehabilitation facility in Ukraine named after the Apostle Luke. This is a non-governmental project, which brings doctors to the eastern frontline. There, they help wounded and ill: both the Ukrainian soldiers and civil locals. The icons on ammo boxes, thus, demonstrate how violence and pain can be transfigured to peace and relief, and actually contribute to this transfiguration through the work of doctors.

The exhibition will be in the De Brome Chapel from the beginning of December until the middle of February.