Trees in the wind

This work translates the rhythms of Pavlo Tychyna’s celebrated poem “Гаї шумлять” (The Groves Are Rustling) into visual form. A row of trees bends in unison, their crowns dissolving into luminous shades of green, as if trembling with song. The sky, layered in shifting blues and aquas, holds a vibrating stillness, while the golden-yellow field glows like an echo of sunlight.

At the lower edge, a solitary figure rests in contemplation, a quiet witness to nature’s music.

The landscape becomes both literal and lyrical: trees are not only trees, but voices, instruments of wind and memory. The oil pastel medium enhances this sensorial quality, its granular surface catching flickers of motion and light.

Rooted in Ukrainian poetry and landscape, the work offers a meditation on harmony between human presence and nature’s vast chorus, where even silence seems filled with sound.

Oil pastel on 250 g/m2 paper.

The size of the artwork provided includes ~1cm border.

This artwork is part of the Heritage series where I explore my own inner landscape and childhood memories, processing the grief of war that struck my homeland, and finding hope and resolution in creating, despite destruction.