C215 Stencils on Tanks and Ruins: Dispatch From Ukraine

French street artist and stencil master, Christian Guemy AKA C215 shows us all the spots he painted in Ukraine this spring. As has been his passion for many years on the street, he brought art to the most unusual of surfaces and locations.

There to help people and lift the spirits of people in the middle of a war, the artist chose the street as a platform to reach out to others with his visual poetry. Going back and forth to Ukraine in March, April, and May, the artist looked for unconventional surfaces to spray his multi-layer portraits and wildlife onto the ruins of the bombed buildings, abandoned and destroyed vehicles and tanks. Here with some explanations, the artist shares his works with BSA readers.

C215. Painted on the hull of a Russian tank near Kyiv, Ukraine. (photo © C215)
C215. The artist painted this portrait of a child in the city of Zhytomyr, Ukraine near the border with Belarus. He painted the faces of children on the ruins of a building that was destroyed by Russian bombs. (photo © C215)
C215. Gostome/Bucha, Kyiv, Ukraine. (photo © C215)
C215. “The Russians killed 6 people, civilians, the day they bombed the Kyiv television tower in early March, two steps from the site of Babi Yar, a ravine where the nazis shot dead over 30,000 Jews in 2 days in 1941. A symbolic place. A rocket also hit a nearby building. I painted this dignified and powerful face of a Ukrainian young girl whose photo was taken in 1935” – C215 (photo © C215)
C215. Kyiv, Urkaine. (photo © C215)
C215. Kyiv, Urkaine. (photo © C215)
C215. Painted on the hull of a Russian tank near Kyiv, Ukraine. (photo © C215)
C215. Kyiv, Urkaine. (photo © C215)
C215. Lviv. Ukraine. (photo © C215)
C215. “My way to wish a happy Vyshyvanka Day to all Ukrainian people by painting my son Gabin wearing the traditional Ukrainian shirt. The portrait was painted on a building destroyed by a Russian rocket in Kyiv”. -C215/ (photo © C215)
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