Due to the destruction of Kakhovka hydroelectric power station across the Dnipro river in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories on June 6, the house-museum of Ukrainian artist Polina Raiko – whose paintings were a unique example of Ukrainian art brut and monumental art – is probably lost due to flooding. Artist Kherson Semen Khramtsov reported on Facebook yesterday that the fresco-filled house was “under water” and museum workers were evacuated and safe. “There is a need for medicine, food, drinking water,” Khramtsov wrote.
In a comment to Hyperallergic, Khramtsov shared that his sources residing in occupied Oleshky confirmed that the building had been submerged, with only its roof visible above the water. As for the frescoes inside the house, the extent of their damage remains unknown, some of them having been painted over the wallpaper.
Raiko has used her art as a way to deal with personal trauma, treating the surfaces of her home like a canvas. Everything in the house – walls, ceilings, doors and fence – Raiko covered in painted enamel designs of fantastical birds and flowers, Christian iconography and the artist’s own interpretations of his dreams and the events of his life. life.
Polina Raiko, who died in 2004, was a self-taught foreign artist from Oleshky region, Kherson. She started drawing in 1998 at the age of 69 following tragic family events – the death of her husband and daughter and the incarceration of her son. In 2008, artist Viacheslav Mashnytsky started a foundation to preserve Raiko’s legacy. Mashnytsky has disappeared after the Russian occupation of Kherson in 2022.
Oleshky, a town in the Kherson region currently occupied by the Russian Federation, was flooded after the Nova Kakhovka dam burst. On October 20, 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed that Russia had mined the dam, warned of the potential explosion and requested an international mission to monitor a possible “large-scale disaster”.
The destruction of the dam caused a humanitarian and environmental disaster, with 30 settlements flooded and more than 2,300 people evacuated from affected areas. Many historical and archaeological sites are in danger of disappearing.
