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It is a collage of 10 paintings, each of them shows a fragment of the story of the main character Uncle Tolia. We see Tolia with wounded and bandaged arm drinking vodka; dogs that remined soldiers; the male sodiers themselves; explosions; deaths; women crying because her man is killed; Tolia talking to woman in the shop; Tolia talking to doctor in the hospital; Tolia's wife talking by phone to psychologist.

Uncle Tolia

Oksana Briukhovetska

Tempera on paper., 2016

Graduate
This series is based on the documentation of the real story of Uncle Tolia, a man who returns home from the war in the Donbas, the southeastern region of Ukraine that remains partially occupied by militants. I accidentally met him during a trip I took on an overnight train in 2015. He told me his story while drinking vodka. Later, I summarized the fragments using direct speech of Uncle Tolia, and accompanied by my own essay called “Aw, Fuck that War!”