Street Artist C215

Stencil artist C215 went to Ukraine. This is his story.

C215: This morning I’m going back to Ukraine, to paint there for the Ukrainians, to show our solidarity there and also to find those I had met. Among other things, I will do this portrait of my son Gabin, in Ukrainian attire. When I return, I will think about my future. I am getting old, and tired. Thank you for your support 💛💙

C215: Back in Ukraine, this time to paint street art in support of Ukrainians, and art that show our solidarity, rather than images that show the horror of the bombardments of civilian areas, as I did a month.

First of these works, with the complicity of the municipality of the city of LVIV, I realized this fresco representing a little girl with a crown of flowers, symbol of Ukrainian folklore. This wall is the twin of the one I painted at the start of the conflict in the 13th arrondissement of Paris. Of the same subject and of equal size to the first Parisian wall, this wall symbolizes beyond the distance the friendship that binds us to the Ukrainians, and the unconditional support that we bring to their refugee families, who I hope will soon be able to return to Ukraine. Find their homes.

Jérôme Coumet, mayor of the 13th arrondissement of Paris, and I will soon come back together to inaugurate this wall with the mayor of Lviv and announce beautiful Franco-Ukrainian artistic cooperation.

C215: Thus continues this second stay in Ukraine, here in Lviv, with this message of love and hope addressed to all lovers separated by war, inspired by a French song from another era, another war: “I will wait, I will wait day and night, I will always wait for your return…”

C215: https://www.instagram.com/p/CdgmHb5IAMJ/In a refugee camp in Lviv, the power of life, youth, innocence…

C215: In Lviv, Ukraine.

C215: Very happy to have been able to produce a “Liberty Leading the People” in the colors of Ukraine on the terrace of the French Embassy in Kyiv, to symbolically mark the return of France by its diplomatic corps to the capital.

C215: In the city center of Kyiv, Ukraine, this building partially destroyed by a Russian missile.

C215: In Kyiv city center, civilian areas destroyed by Russian bombs.

C215: A major figure in Ukrainian cultural identity, Taras Shevchenko (1814-1861) was a humanist poet, painter and ethnographer. He is considered the greatest romantic poet in the Ukrainian language, the equivalent of our [France] Victor Hugo. For the Ukrainians, in Kyiv, with tenderness

C215: Gostomel/Bucha, Kyiv oblast, Ukraine.

C215: In Gostomel/Bucha, Kyiv oblast, Ukraine.

C215: My way to wish an happy Vyshyvanka Day to all Ukrainian people by painting my son Gabin wearing that traditional shirt in front of a building destroyed by a Russian rocket in Kyiv.

C215: The time will come when life take over… In Kyiv, Ukraine.

C215: Near Kyiv, on the carcass of this Russian tank, when art tries to defy the absurdity of war.

C215: Souvenir from Lviv refugee camp in Ukraine. Returning to Paris was very difficult. I will have to digest what I saw in Voutcha, the extinguished faces, the bullet holes everywhere, the casings on the ground, the cemeteries with multiple newly dug graves, the destroyed buildings, the desolation.

Happiness to find my family and my children, even if the reconnection is not easy.

I would like to tell you that despite (or because of) my many publications of murals made over the past two months in Ukraine, an impressive number of Russian artists have since subscribed to my Instagram account, and validate my publications. There is hope.

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