Student Art
This is art produced by young school students created as part of an art project to teach students about the Holodomor. It reflects their thoughts and feelings about this tragic historical event.
Elementary school students produced art on the lifestyle of Ukrainians in the context of the Holodomor and its consequences. This was part of a larger activity to teach students about the Holodomor and encouraged them to reflect through the production of art on the abuse of human rights, and its importance.
To see the project outline to do with your own class see our learning activities page.
These paintings by students in grade 5 and 6 were created during a special project about the Holodomor, titled “Through the Eyes of a Child,” presented by educator Halia Sawycky-Dmytryshyn of Toronto.
By Stephan Fasevak
This piece of commemorative art depicts a man with a swollen stomach and a skeleton standing behind him in clothing. Behind both figures is a field of crosses demarcating graves.
From: Josyf Cardinal Slipyj School
By Mark Witiuk
Title: Hungry Cold Winter – 2000.
This painting is of a winter scene, a farm house covered in snow, white fields with some remaining wheat stalks, bare trees and brisk blue sky.
From St. Demitrius School
By Matthew Clarke
Title: Golden Wheat Dancing in the Wind -2000.
This painting is of stalks of wheat in the foreground and an empty field in the background.
From St. Demetrius School
By Sonia Merena
Title: Flowering Fertile Soil - 2000
This is a painting of a filed of poppies, a flower that's traditionally representative of Ukraine.
From St. Sofia's School
By Jaroslaw Fenton
Title:Fear before Terror – 2000
This commemorative painting depicts a villager standing in front of a church with her hands up in the air and an official standing beside her.
From St. Sofia's School
By Stephan Pahuta
This commemorative painting depicts a farm house out in a field and a road leading to an empty plot of land with a cart that has some food in it.
From Josyf Cardinal Slipyj School
By Stephan D'Anna
Title:Crosses and graves over Eastern Ukraine, 2000
This commemorative painting depicts a Ukrainian man sitting with is eyes closed with a sadden face, in the background are graves with crosses over them.
From St. Demetrius School
By Alexander Wytiahlowsky
Title: Candles lit in the dark praying for God's help – 2000
This commemorative painting depicts a Ukrainian woman crying and placing a candle, this is symbolic of commemorating the dead.
From: St. Demetrius School
By Marta Mekylyta
This painting depicts a woman crying under a bare tree against a blue sky.
From: St. Demetrius School
By Wojciech Gorski
This is a painting of an official, pointing and holding the communist symbol, the hammer and sickle.
From School St. Sofia
By Denis Iwaniura
This commemorative painting depicts a Ukrainian family out on the lawn outside of their house, a skeleton also lays next to the house. A golden field resides in the background under a blue sky and full sun. Next to the family in the foreground are officials with fat stomachs and guns, taking wheat away from one of the family members.
From: St. Sofia School
By Tanya Andrusieczko
This commemorative painting has a basket of food on the left side and on the right side the year 1933 and a hammer and sickle.
From: Josyf Cardinal Slipyj School
By Victoria Treister
This commemorative painting depicts a mother holding and crying over a baby who is also crying. To the side of them is an empty container and three stalks of wheat.
From: St. Demetrius School
By Peter Rak
This commemorative painting depicts a dark red brown filed against dark black and gray skies, in the foreground three stalks of bent golden wheat.
From: St. Sofia School
By Nishta Oleksandr
This commemorative painting depicts two women hanging bodies on a bare tree as if to dry.
From: Josyf Cardinal Slipyj School
By Jaro Wowk
This commemorative painting depicts a family inside a home praying on their knees, a father on the left, a child in the center and a mother on the right. In the windows and the door are soviet officials holding guns.
From: St. Sofia School
By Yuri Hajtko
This commemorative painting depicts a two sides concept, on the top left is the Ukrainian flag and the Tryzob, or Trident in the center top the years 1932-1933 and next to that the communist flag with the hammer and sickle. Below on the left side a woman stands in the center behind a gate facing the other side, which is to be understood as Soviet Russia. Behind her on the left in the corner is an Orthodox Ukrainian church and a thin farmer in front of it. On the right hand side is the Soviet military, pointing guns and artillery at the gate at what would be representative of Ukraine.
From: St. Sofia School
By Terry Sydoryshyn
This commemorative painting is of a map of Ukraine, it's gives indication of where people where being staved, although perhaps not entirely correct geographically or historically, the painting is representative of what the Student understood of the Holodomor that took place in Ukraine.
From: St. Sofia School
By Christina Cholkan
In this painting a Ukrainian woman is lying on her back and reaching up at an apple on an otherwise bare tree, there is an empty basket to her left and rolling fields in the background. The sky is a dark navy blue with a full moon in the top left corner.
From: Josyf Cardinal Slipyj School
By Vasil Hnatkivskyy
Title: Death at our door, 2000
In this commemorative painting their is a farm house to the left, and an empty field to the right in the background and in the foreground is a wagon with a person collecting dead bodies and placing them on a cart to be taken to be buried.
From: St. Josaphat School
By Veronica Sabelnyk
In the foreground of this painting is a man with a swollen belly on his hands and knees eating grass, another man sits on the right with his arms wrapped around his knees and in the background to the left is a woman lying on her back with a swollen belly and to the right of her is what looks like a cage of people, all crammed in with legs and arms sticking out.
From: St. Josephat School
By Adrian Szubelak
This painting depicts a naked emaciated body of a child.
From: St. Sofia School
By Michael Muzyczka
This painting depicts a crying Ukrainian child with wheat fields behind him.
From: St. Sofia School
By Yaroslav Mikolaenko
This painting is of one of the Ukrainian orthodox churches being destroyed, which is representative of the destruction by the Soviets at that time, many Ukrainian church's were destroyed by Soviet Officials.
From: Josyf Cardinal Slipyj School
By Natalie Samoil
This painting shows wheat against a blue in the left corner, in the right corner a green hill with crosses, and along the center and bottom are 22 sad faces of both men and women.
From: St. Sofia School
By Elyse Velagic
This painting depicts a dead family lying outside of a house. The ground is a muddy colour and the sky is gray and blue.
From: Josyf Cardinal Slipyj School
By Alex Hocko
This painting depicts a woman standing in the doorway of her house with a baby in her arms. In the foreground we see the back of an official with the hammer and sickle, s communist symbol on his uniform, he is carrying a gun and seems to be headed toward or guarding the house so she can't leave.
From: Josyf Cardinal Slipyj School
By Nykola Blozowski
This piece of commemorative art depicts a person kneeling at a grave in a field of graves. The sky colours would suggest it's dusk.
From: St. Demetrius School
By Marta Chomej
Title: Land Once Golden & bright turned into darkness overnight - 2000
This painting depicts a woman standing in the foreground her arms outstretched, on the left side of the painting in the background a golden field of wheat and a bright blue sky, with a sun and some clouds, on the left side a dark navy blue sky and an empty field.
From: St. Sofia School
By Andrew Kikhard
This piece of commemorative art depicts a Ukrainian woman crying in an empty field, with a bright sun setting in the background.
From: St. Demetrius School
By Oksana Hrycyk
Title: Sun Eyes
This painting depicts a house, a tree and a cross on fire on the side of the road in an otherwise green field. The sun shines and above it, blue eyes sit in its shinning light.
From:St. Sofia School
By Alexandra Mamalyha
This painting depicts two Ukrainian girls lying in a field with their eyes and mouth open, their is an official in the foreground.
From: St Demetrius School
By Victoria Jmourko
This painting depicts a woman held behind bars, she looks like she hasn't slept, has swollen eyes, and is crying.
From: St. Sofia School
By Sereda
This piece of commemorative art depicts a woman holding a loved one dead in her arms after he was shot, shes being held at gun point for putting for in her mouth. Her hand covers the loved ones wound as it bleeds.
From: St. Sofia School
By Marta Kolianova
This is a replica of a famous painting title Zemliia (The Earth) by Bohdan Pevny. The painting depicts a woman clutching at the earth, with a bunch of forget-me-knots laying by her side. The foreground and background are bare rolling fields.
From: St. Josaphat School
By Kassandra Prus
Title: Victims of the Holodomor, 2000
This piece of commemorative art depicts a woman at a grave site, praying on her knees. There are crosses all around her and in the foreground a bare tree. This art piece has been done in black and white.
From: Josyf Cardinal Slipyj School
Titled Babe in Arms
This piece of commemorative art depicts a child in a mothers arms with a swollen stomach and knobby knees, a typical body suffering from starvation.
The artist never wrote their name or what school they came from, if anyone knows who the artist is please get in touch with us and we'll post the name of the artist and the school they came from.
By Mary Hontar
This piece of commemorative art depicts a house and a family who was kicked out. They are lying on the side of the road, there is an empty garden, and the years 1932-1933 written into the sun. In the foreground is an official taking the food away, presumably from the garden, on the back of a wagon.
From: St. Sofia School
By Larusa Kasij
This piece of commemorative art depicts a Ukrainian family in a house, all of them sad with a bare field in the background. A lone lone stalk of wheat sits in the field bent in the wind.
From: St. Sofia School
By Tamara Skocylak
This piece of commemorative art depicts a before and after image of the fields of Ukraine, one is vibrant and colourful and bright, while the other is dark and somber.
From: Josyf Cardinal Slipyj School
By Steven Gula
This piece of commemorative art depicts a Ukrainian lying, eyes closed in dark soil with a bare tree in the background.
From: St. Demetrius School
By Julian Krywonis
This piece of commemorative art depicts a Ukrainian Held at gun point with food at his feet in a basket with empty rolling fields tilled all around them.
From: Josyf Cardinal Slipyj School
By Nina Shewchuk
This piece of commemorative art depicts a family in an empty field, with what looks to be the mother on her knees sifting the dark earth through her hands.
From: St. Demetrius School
By By Lidia Siniavskaia
Title Mother Ukraine – 2000.
This painting is of a Ukrainian woman holding wheat, with a gold field and farm house in the background.
From St. Josaphat School
By Vera Kowalsky
Title: Yellow sunflowers reaching for the sky – 2000.
This is a painting of sunflowers, another flower that's traditionally representative of Ukraine.
From St. Demetrius School
By Zorian Stech
Title: Yearning to be independent and free - 2000.
This is a painting of a farm house, a field with bundles of wheat, a Ukrainian flag, a church in the background left corner and a tree in the foreground right corner.
From St. Demetrius School