Using art as an escape

A young girl who fled the war in Ukraine with her mother last year has been making a name for herself as a talented artist.

Since arriving in Ireland Vero Rudenko has immersed herself in her hobby, creating compositions of imagined homesteads.

Her artworks have already found willing buyers at craft fairs, and she has even received a commission from one admirer of her work.

“I really like to be creative - I like to paint, to draw, to sketch, and to crochet,” says the multi-talented Vero in surprisingly fluent English.

Her mam Kate Tikonova explains that Vero arrived in Ireland “with three words in English: hello goodbye and thankyou.” Her fluency is due to the “brilliant job” done by the teachers at Billis National School, according to grateful Kate.

“They paid so much attention to her, they developed her English so well - and it wasn’t any stress for her. She just started talking.”

The school community gives Vero great encouragement for her paintings.

“I bring them to school and show them to my teachers and my friends,” Vero tells the Celt. “They say it’s incredible.”

Vero is also delighted to share some breaking news from Billis NS: “There is an artist coming into our school and she says that one of us in our classroom will be painting a mural in our school with her, and they picked me to paint a mural!”

The subject of the mural has yet to be decided. However in Vero’s own work she relishes painting idealised homes.

In one such painting a snippet of seascape reaches out to the horizon with a wooden cabin emerging from foliage in the mid-ground while claiming the limelight is a dog perched on a jetty.

“She loves nature, and country-side houses to live in. For her it is a new experience because she has always been living in an apartment in a busy city,” explains her mother Kate.

“And the dog - it is our big love - because our dog stayed in Lviv with my mum, and she misses it so much. That is why she has chosen to paint this picture just as associations with the perfect life for her.”

Life for Vero and her mam has had to gradually be rebuilt due to last year’s upheaval. Their home city of Lviv is in the west of the country, which gives it a more European sensibility. Kate fondly describes her home city as “very beautiful”.

“It was shock,” Kate recalls of the invasion by Russian troops. “Because until the day it started we had no idea that something like that could happen.

“We were lucky to live in the part that was not so much damaged in comparison with all other parts of Ukraine.”

With sirens warning of potential attack a frequent occurrence, Kate felt she was left with no option but to leave as “it was not safe for children”.

“In that period when it began all the borders were over crowded, it was panic, it was an awful situation there.”

They first travelled to Poland - where the pair marked Vero’s 10th birthday. During a week weighing up their options a friend of Kate’s already living in Ireland explained how the country had opened its borders and Vero could easily get into a school, which was Kate’s priority.

They arrived in ireland on March 8, 2022 and rather than live close to other Ukrainian natives, Kate and Vero rented a rural Cavan home and integrated well.

Kate took up a retail job in Mr James in Cavan Town, and Vero overcame initial homesickness.

“First when I came I really wanted to go back to Ukraine because I missed everything and I didn’t know the language that good,” recalls Vero. “I missed my friends, my family, my dog - but now it’s like my second home because I’ve made friends, I have my home here too and I really like it here.”

A big part of settling in tolife in County Cavan has been her to indulge her art. Neither Kate nor her ex-husband were into art, so Vero’s talent is somewhat unexpected.

“From the age of six, I noticed her pictures are not like children’s paintings. For me it was just wow!”

Kate enrolled her in art classes in Ukraine but between, Covid and war, she only received a few months’ tutoring.

“She’s more self-taught,” says Kate. “She watches Youtube channels from artists and tries to learn all the skills from there and some general knowledge.

“She does everything by herself. I don’t tell her what to do - she’s a very independent, mature girl. This is her talent.”