Sunflower Variations
This is Ukraine
A composition in 27 parts
The online auction has ended.
Thanks to everyone who made this project a success.
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Helianthus annus. Sunflowers breed warm, from cream to yellow, orange to mahogany brown.
In the wild, sunflowers have many flowered heads; the domestic sunflower usually has only one.
Since 2012, Ukraine has been the world’s leading exporter of sunflower oil.1
Sunflower seeds are food. The seeds can also be used to make flour and oil. If left unrefined, sunflower oil has a distinctive taste that lingers in your mouth like musk.2
Sunflowers only turn their heads toward the sun when they are young. A mature sunflower knows better.
A sunflower is a composite of many flowers presenting as a single flowerhead. These multitudes of tiny flowers produce interconnecting spirals in Fibonacci sequences.
Sunflowers are used by the United Kingdom as a symbol for hidden disabilities.
The sunflower is the national flower of Ukraine.
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In biology: any difference between cells, individual organisms, or groups of organisms caused either by genetic or environmental factors. Variation may be shown in physical appearance, behavior and/or other obvious or measurable characteristics.
In music: technique consisting of changing one or more aspects of a composition melodically, harmonically, or in counterpoint. Examples of musical variation include the Goldberg Variations of J.S. Bach, the twelve-tone technique developed by Arnold Schoenberg, and simultaneous variations in Indonesian gamelan music.
In art: variated editions diverge slightly from piece to piece by using different surfaces, materials, colors or techniques. Can also be called artist proofs and variated proofs, among other terms
The 27 pieces included within this project represent the 27 administrative regions of Ukraine, including those areas occupied illegally by Russia starting in 2014.
Variation #20
Print: Artist Proof 2/10
Frame: Cherry wood, battered pillar, gouges (not shown)
Variation #9
Print: Variated Edition 2/18
Frame: metal pipes, Russian & English vinyl letters
About this Project
Sunflower Variations—this is Ukraine was created as a companion to my hybrid chapbook, Kyivsky Waltz—a love story, which was published by Finishing Line Press in March.
Kyivsky Waltz chronicles my time living in Ukraine in the mid-1990s, where I helped establish one of the country’s first independent newspapers. The Ukraine I experienced was certainly flawed—what country isn’t? But it was also a nation focused on new beginnings despite past horrors; a country filled with hope after finally becoming free. Watching history repeat itself as Russia turns Ukraine into a war zone once again has been devastating.
Sunflower Variations serves as a counterpoint to Kyivsky Waltz: where the chapbook invokes memories, this series of 27 letterpress prints—each in its own unique conceptual frame— aims to spark discussion and raise awareness about present-day Ukraine.
The frames were designed and constructed by myself and members of the Introspective Collective of artists (Ana Paula Cordeiro, Aurora De Armendi Sobrino, Thomas Gallagher, Sarah Nicholls, and Konrad Will in this iteration); I originally created the variated sunflower prints for the chapbook.
This showcase features each individual variation, accompanied by a short essay on its topic. All pieces will be auctioned for Razom; a limited-edition artist book documenting the project will also be available.
— KS Lack, September 2024
Sunflower Variations at Foxtrot Farm & Flowers
In November 2024, the Sunflower Variations were exhibited in a renovated antique barn on a working flower farm in New York’s Hudson Valley.
Drawing on the importance of sunflowers as an agricultural product, the rusticity of the Ukrainian dacha, and the beauty that flowers bring to our lives, the exhibit provided an opportunity to engage with this project in a unique setting.
Razom for Ukraine was founded in 2014 and is one of the leading US-based nonprofits dedicated to the mission of supporting a democratic and prosperous Ukraine.
Razom, which means “together” in Ukrainian, provides humanitarian aid, and administers programs and services focused on health, advocacy, civil society and culture. Since the full-scale invasion in 2022, Razom for Ukraine has grown to include over 200,000 donors and volunteers and has raised over $88 million in funds.
Find out more by going to www.razomforukraine.org.
The name “Ukraine” derives from a word for borderland, and far too often the country itself has been treated as such—a place on the margins—unimportant and dismissed by the empires that controlled it. On the fifth anniversary of independence, the Ukrainian government printed a celebratory book called Tse Ukraina | This is Ukraine. It was a declaration, a line in the sand. Ukraine was no longer the gateway to an empire. It existed independently as a sovereign nation.
Three and and a half years into Russia’s despotic attempt to eradicate Ukraine and all that it stands for, the need to support Ukraine’s right to be free from its historical oppressor is more important than ever.