Masks play an important role in two cultures that fascinate me: Japanese and Ukrainian. A mask is a state, an emotion, a shield, a concealment, a talisman, a symbol, a duality. Originally created for a charity initiative by the Children of Heroes Foundation, these masks have since become part of my personal artistic practice.

When everything around demands presence, the human instinct is to flee. But is true escape even possible? One can only distance oneself from the world through hiding — by building a barrier between the real and the unwelcome. That barrier is something primal, natural, instinctive, naïve, animal.

Maybe what we hide tells more about us than what we reveal. There are two of us here — but how many of us are there?