Artur Vovchenko. Stories about wolves and rabbits

Artur Vovchenko. Stories about wolves and rabbits

Artur Vovchenko is a 22-year-old multidisciplinary artist from Kyiv, working with photography, video, drawing, and ceramics. His practice centers around two primary directions: queer art and a personal symbolic narrative titled “Stories about wolves and rabbits”.

All images and videos courtesy of Artur Vovchenko, used with permission.

With the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Artur began photographing in frontline regions and launched several documentary series, such as “Thirst for Freedom”, which captured the first queer parties after the invasion began, and “Stay Queer No Matter War” — a project that shared the stories of twelve queer individuals in Kharkiv and Kyiv through portraits and interviews. The project became a large-scale exhibition in Liverpool with the support of UkrainePride.

Later, Artur moved away from documentary work and turned to more romantic, symbolic, and intimate imagery.

Since 2022, he has been developing a long-term personal project titled “Flowers are born in dirt and die in crystal” (Квіти народжуються у бруді та помирають у кришталі), which reflects on the Ukrainian queer experience. Through photography and poetry, Artur tells his own journey of confronting internalized homophobia and a childhood shaped by Protestantism. For over three years, he has been photographing queer men from Ukraine, experimenting with the materiality of dirt in his visuals — a recurring symbol of sin and internal struggle within the project.

Another lifelong project of Artur’s is “Stories about wolves and rabbits”, in which he uses various media to depict a primitive narrative: a rabbit being pursued by a wolf. The series is accompanied by the artist’s manifesto:

“The narrative underlying my practice is built on primitive symbolism — the rabbit and the wolf, the victim and the aggressor, the one who flees and the one who hunts.
The story always remains the same: the wolf chases the rabbit, and the rabbit runs.

The rabbit represents the state of the victim: calm, a fleeting sense of safety, anxiety, escape, death, love, pain.
The wolf embodies the attacker: hatred, pursuit, craving, dependence, rage, disorientation.

It’s a typical pattern of conflict between two opposites.

The dynamics between them vary: from clearly resolved narratives, where the wolf catches the rabbit, to an endless linear chase on an imagined path — a symbol of undefined time. In all cases, the outcome is inevitable: the rabbit dies.

The appearance of a single character in an artwork emphasizes inner emotional states. The absence of the other does not imply their nonexistence — they remain present beyond the frame.

The simultaneous presence of both figures highlights the emotional interplay between them.
For every rabbit, there is a wolf — and for every wolf, a rabbit.

This imagined world, inhabited only by these two figures, creates an intuitive invitation to self-identify with either character through empathy and emotional projection.

The story encourages the viewer to step into the role of either one — to embody their experiences through personal perception.
Facing one’s own fears, acknowledging the inner aggressor — this becomes a visual act of giving form to previously faceless emotions. The wolf and the rabbit become their embodiment.

The series also plays with the viewer’s perspective. In truth, you can sympathize with either one.
It’s like watching a wildlife documentary where a mother wolf hunts a rabbit to feed her cubs.
That same rabbit, now dead, leaves behind its own babies — now starving and doomed.
Nothing in our world is purely black or white; everything has its context, its purpose — even the wolf, even the rabbit.

In this world, there are no fixed villains. Both characters are equally central. Everything becomes relative”.