Tattoos of War

Sergey Melnitchenko’s art book Tattoos of War is an exclusive publication, all copies of the limited edition are signed by Sergey.

Sergey Melnitchenko started his series Tattoos of War in the spring of 2023. In this art book, we present to you a photo series of black and white photographs, the characters of which, mostly friends and relatives of Sergey, pose against the background of projected images of a full-scale war. In this way, the photographer documents the visual imprints of painful memories, reflections, feelings, and emotions of both the heroes and the majority of Ukrainians. The participants of the filming seem to choose for themselves the picture and memory that hurt the most. However, all Ukrainians experienced so many moments like this during the war that it is very difficult to choose just one. Photos of war horrors are displayed on the bodies and faces of the characters through a projector in a separate layer, creating a new surface, a conditional ‘tattoo’ that will stay with them forever. Sergey can take thousands of such photos – of every person, every child, every brave soldier who is defending our country today. Everything that is happening now is our common destiny, our history, which is written in blood every day.

The photographs from the Tattoos of War series became part of the collection of the German foundation Alexander-Tutsek Stiftung. Initially, the artist gave the photographs from the series to the Alexander-Tutsek Stiftung as a gift to the foundation’s team for the invitation to participate in the group exhibition So Much Love and Compassion. The photographer presented small versions of the photos, 25×20 cm in size, but the curators of the art institution wanted to purchase large photographs for the collection.

In addition to the photographs of the series Tattoos of War, the art book also contains an article by Sergey Melnitchenko about the artist’s inner feelings in times of war and conceptual photography in Ukraine. A well-known Ukrainian analyst of the literary and book market Kostiantyn Rodyk has prepared an insightful review of the series.

We would like to thank our long-term partner, Arctic Paper, for their support, which made the publication of this art book possible.