Following the start of the war on February 24th Zhyvotkov does not evacuate from Kyiv. It’s dangerous and the city isconstantly shelled but the artist continues to work in his studio. Atthe height of the war, he creates art dedicated to this tragedy.Zhyvotkov uses grey granite to capture Ukraine’s suffering. It’s anemotionally charged sculpture portrait: the craggy face is frozen inanguish while trying to hold a scream.Zhyvotkov’s new art has the same humane and powerfulanti-war sentiment which could be compared to the works by FranciscoGoya, Pablo Picasso, Käthe Kollwitz, and Anselm Kiefer.The artist’s words will ring true with anyone who saw at least one real-life photo from the Ukrainian town of Bucha: “Fora whole month I would wake up with a knot inside of me; with all the feelings jumbled up – the feeling of hate was mixed with disbelief (how could this be?) followed by fear, resentment, anger, and the desire to strangle those bastards – these feelings would not go away, they stopped only when I started working. I felt the same when I saw the Bucha photos. I could not believe that something like that could happen in the 21 century. I have no idea what creatures are responsible for all of it. The choice of words is not incidental – I mean “creatures”.