"I wish I would never need to draw this": Ukrainian graphic artists share work to raise awareness, funds for Ukraine
A group of Ukrainian graphic artists is responding to Russia's invasion of their home country with creativity. They've come together to share their work and raise awareness and funds for Ukraine.
Artist Anna Sarvira co-founded the collective to share graphic art from fellow illustrators. She told "Face the Nation" moderator and CBS News chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Brennan that she fled Ukraine and doesn't know when she'll return, as she's haunted by the war.
"We are not soldiers or we are not doctors. Being an artist during the war you think: People are dying, and you're drawing," Sarvira said. "We don't have experience of the war. Only that you feel hate, hate, and hate, and it's terrible feeling. I was drawing this feeling, and when you feel only that you cannot do anything else."
She said many of the artists she works with decided not to leave Ukraine, like Oleksandr Shatokhin — as Russian bombs dropped on his city, he sent Sarvira works of art each day.
Sarvira's collective helped organize more than 40 exhibitions around the world to auction artwork, including at Ukraine House in Washington, D.C.
Illustrator Tania Yakunova's work is inspired by the bravery of ordinary Ukrainians. She drew even as she fled the bombing of Kyiv and is now documenting the horrific atrocities left behind.
"We have this video where Russian shooting and people are don't even scared of the sound of the gun," she said.
One of her works of art is called "Bucha Mother."
"This image is a collective image of the several victims who, they can't share their stories unfortunately," Yakunova said. "The army found corpses of several young women naked and raped on a roadside, and Russians tried to burn them."
She used to illustrate children's books, but she said the war has robbed her and so many others of that innocence.
"There is more stories about a woman who was raped in front of her small baby, and neither woman nor baby survived. They were shot," Yakunova said.
"I wish I would never need to draw this," she added.