Inside Kyiv’s Lavra Gallery, contemporary paintings, sculptures and installations have drawn visitors searching for something increasingly rare in wartime Ukraine: emotional stillness. The city’s art fair, This is Normal, has emerged as a cultural space where artists and audiences attempt to process the emotional exhaustion of living through conflict without directly depicting it.
Held in the Ukrainian capital during continuing Russian attacks, the fair centres on the idea that creativity can help people cope with realities that have gradually become ordinary. Air-raid sirens occasionally interrupt conversations inside the gallery halls, yet visitors continue to browse exhibitions, attend discussions and engage with artists.
For organiser Anna Avetova, the fair is less about escape and more about learning to exist within difficult circumstances. She describes the event as an effort to continue cultural life rather than pause it until safer times arrive.
According to Avetova, art has become a way for many Ukrainians to preserve emotional continuity and maintain a sense of humanity amid prolonged instability. While the war inevitably shapes the atmosphere surrounding the event, organisers intentionally avoided dedicating exhibitions solely to conflict.
Instead, the works on display move through abstraction, surreal portraiture, landscapes and experimental sculpture. The absence of overt wartime imagery feels deliberate. Rather than documenting destruction directly, many artists focus on colour, texture and emotional ambiguity, reflecting quieter forms of resilience.
he fair also highlights the fragile recovery of Ukraine’s domestic art market. Cultural institutions and galleries had already faced financial difficulties during the COVID-19 pandemic before the war further disrupted artistic production and sales. Events like This is Normal now serve not only as exhibitions but also as opportunities for artists to reconnect with collectors and audiences.
Ceramic artist Tala Vovk is presenting her work publicly for the first time. She says attending cultural gatherings in Kyiv helps create temporary distance from the emotional heaviness of everyday life during war.
For Vovk, art exists outside ordinary routines and anxieties. She believes maintaining cultural spaces during wartime is essential because they strengthen a society’s creative and emotional foundations, particularly during periods of uncertainty.
Painter Yuriy Vatkin shares a similar perspective. In the early weeks of Russia’s invasion, he was trapped in occupied territory near Kharkiv, close to the Russian border. According to his representative, Denys Dmytriev, painting became an important emotional outlet while he endured isolation and instability. Even after his studio was damaged in an attack, he continued working.
Vatkin’s paintings, currently displayed at the fair, feature layered brushstrokes, fragmented forms and striking colours that create a sense of movement and tension. Though not explicitly connected to war, the works carry emotional intensity that many visitors recognise instinctively.
Among them is attendee Anna Domashchenko, who says she was drawn to the richness of the colours and the emotions they evoke. She frequently visits art events in Kyiv and believes such gatherings remain deeply important despite the circumstances surrounding them.
For Domashchenko, continuing to experience art during wartime is not inappropriate but necessary. Cultural spaces, she says, offer reminders that life still contains beauty, imagination and emotional depth — even during periods marked by uncertainty and loss.
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