Icons on Ammo Boxes is a project of Kyiv-based artists Sophia Atlantova and Olexandr Klymenko.
In the over one-thousand-year history of iconography of the Eastern Orthodox tradition, a canon has taken shape that, among other things, assumes reliability, durability, and solidity. In other words, an icon must be written on a high-quality, properly dried, and adequately prepared board of correct form, without seams and especially without cracks… This is the vision of the heavenly realm – everything is perfect there not only spiritually but in every possible meaning of this word.
At first glance, the icons of Sofia and Oleksandr are a provocation, a bold challenge to tradition. They break with the typical imagery of iconography, not to outrage, but to show that an icon that breaks with tradition can be convincing.
Phoniness is not in the substance but in the eye of the beholder. It is precisely a perfect, richly decorated, and finely written icon that might look wrong at a time when a terrible war has violated the daily lives of millions of people. Those who are wounded, are refugees and have lost their loved ones feel that all beauty has gone from their lives. In its place is horror, suffering, and grief.
But even today, God Himself, His All-Holy Mother, and all the Saints are nearby. There is hope, there is love right in the midst of destruction. They put away all the gold, treasures, and perfectness of peaceful times, of times of prosperity, and come to us. Untreated wood, carelessly painted for shell crates with khaki paint, halos outlined with charcoal rather than gold leaf – all this is no less, and sometimes more, convincing than refined beauty. Icons on Ammo Boxes speaks namely of this.
Sergei Chapnin
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The box was a present given by officers of the Interior Ministry of Ukraine.
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Calligraphy in Greek #6
1 × $290 
"Christ is Risen from the Dead". Calligraphy
1 × $290 Our Lady of Balykino
1 × $5,500