Natalia Bazyliuk on Her Freedom and Echoes of the Soul Series, War, and Life in Slovakia

Ukrainian painter Natalia Bazyliuk, who has worked for roughly 15 years without formal art training, is developing two ongoing series, Freedom and Echoes of the Soul, and discussed both in a Singulart Magazine interview published October 19, 2026. Her practice began when she found a set of oil paints her mother and she had given her father, a portraitist in pastel pencils who never used them. The Freedom series, built around horses circling and then escaping, grew from her wish to break free of the weight of life and war. Echoes of the Soul opened with Poppies in the Dark (I Don't See Evil, but I Hear the Poppies Blooming), painted soon after her move from Ukraine to Slovakia during a period she describes as carrying pain and uncertainty; nearly a year later a second canvas shows the woman opening her eyes. She works with palette knife and brush, favoring raised texture that shifts in evening light. Bazyliuk says the war in Ukraine reshaped her sense of life's fragility, and that an exhibition in Italy strengthened her confidence that the work could reach beyond the studio. She paints only what she genuinely feels and will decline commissions that fail to resonate. Themes across both series include freedom, inner transformation, self-acceptance, loneliness, hope and love. Three works are featured on her Singulart profile: Poppies in the Dark, Between Thoughts and Angel of Time.