Diana Zhuk
- Anna Lilli Garai
- Nov 11
- 5 min read
Diana Zhuk is a Ukrainian artist and illustrator who works with both painting and digital media. She started out using traditional techniques but turned to digital work in 2022, building a new way of painting shaped by war and personal change. Her art looks at how people hold on to hope when things feel uncertain. Light, memory, and strength appear again and again in her images. In works like "Only You" and "Me, Inseparable", and "Your Name", she shows how connection and emotion can survive, even in difficult times.
Q: What pushed you to leave traditional painting and start working digitally during the war?
A: In 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, I was still working actively in traditional painting. At that time, I created a series called “Dreams” — vivid, colorful canvases that became my personal space of silence and strength, my meditation in a world rapidly sinking into pain and anxiety. I tried to fill life with color, while everything around was turning into an endless stream of distressing news and loss. Later, the entire series was sold, and all proceeds were donated to support the Ukrainian army. In October, massive shelling of civilian infrastructure began, and Ukrainian cities were plunged into darkness.
Blackouts became a part of everyday life, sometimes electricity appeared for only a few hours a day. At that time, my child was born. I remember holding the baby in my arms, looking out the window, and seeing nothing but dense, motionless darkness. That experience changed me.
I could no longer paint on canvas, though for some time I still tried, by the light of flashlights and candles. But the need to create only grew stronger.
And it was then, in that deep silence and darkness, that my first digital illustrations were born. I wasn’t thinking about style or concept, I was simply expressing my inner state, my need to reach for hope and faith. I missed light so much that I began to search for it within myself. And perhaps it is from that inner light that everything I create now has grown.
Q: “Only You and Me” captures both closeness and distance. How did you find that emotional tone?
A: When I was creating “Only You and Me”, I wanted to show how two people can feel deeply close, even while alone in the infinite expanse of space. The mood came from a feeling of vulnerability and uncertainty, something everyone who has faced war or loss can understand. We’ve all realized how fragile life is. But even in that fragility, there’s something beautiful — our ability to love, to care, and to stay connected, even when everything around feels dark. While working on it, I kept thinking about how small we are in the vast universe, yet how powerful it is that we can create meaning, just by holding someone we love.
Q: Light often feels like a character in your work. What draws you to it again and again?
A: For me, light is a symbol of inner strength. Something that endures even through the darkest moments.
In my illustrations, light is not opposed to darkness, it accepts it as part of a whole. Just as we cannot truly understand goodness without knowing evil, or feel the depth of hope without first encountering pain. We are always moving along that fragile edge between loss and love, fear and faith, despair and hope. In the image of light, I see the essence of our human nature — the ability to glow from within and to share that glow with others. That’s why I return to it again and again: this quiet rhythm between shadow and radiance feels to me like the rhythm of life itself. Fragile, yet endlessly beautiful.
Q: “Inseparable” deals with living alongside your fears. How personal was that process for you?
A: The illustration “Inseparable” was inspired by my own experience of living with fear, a constant companion during the war.
I wanted to show the moment of acceptance: when you stop fighting your fears and start learning to live with them. Because fear, though it seems bigger than us, helps us grow stronger. Maybe real courage is not about defeating fear, but about learning to live beside it and staying human despite everything.
When you accept the fear that once seemed bigger than you, you stop seeing it as an enemy. It becomes a reminder of how precious life is, that even in the face of danger, you can still love, laugh, create, raise a child, and teach them to see kindness in this world. That’s when we become inseparable.
Q: Memory seems to run through your images, especially in “Your Name.” What kind of memories shape your art the most?
A: Memory truly runs through most of my works. I’m a person who often returns to the past. I look at it, reflect on it, try to understand it. It’s an experience that shapes who we are and defines our identity.
I often think about my father, who is no longer with me, and this theme appears in my illustrations almost unconsciously, as a way to keep the connection alive.
A person we remember continues to exist in our thoughts, in our character, in little habits and jokes, in the way we see the world.
I feel that memory is a form of presence. It allows someone to stay in our lives even after they’re gone.
We continue our silent dialogue with them in memories and dreams. In this way, we carry a part of that person forward.
People often write to me and share their feelings: some say they were reminded of someone they lost, others tell me my illustration helped them finally release their emotions and cry after a long silence. For me, that means a lot, to know that art can become a bridge between memory and the heart, helping someone live through loss, feel connection, and find peace.
Q: When you think about your whole body of work, what connects the pieces beyond style or technique?
A: If there is something that truly connects all my works, it’s the human soul. Fragile, pure, and full of light. It is always at the center for me, the feeling of a living human presence in the world.
To be human is, perhaps, the greatest gift we have. Along with it come fear, pain, doubt, and inevitable loss. But through these experiences we discover the depth of love, the ability to feel compassion, to forgive, to keep searching for light even when the darkness feels endless.
We are so small, almost invisible in the scale of the cosmos, and yet it is through us that the world itself gains meaning. That’s what I want to express in my art, that every person is the center of their own story, a tiny universe where fear and hope, despair and faith, light and darkness live side by side.
