Art is a powerful weapon, a way to arm people with hope and inspire the future generation.
That was street artist Bandit’s mission heading to war-torn areas of Ukraine during a recent 16-day trip, during which the San Clemente native painted 11 murals on bullet-riddled and bombed buildings and structures throughout the region.
“It is to remind people, to show the people of the Ukraine some of us are still paying attention and you have our sympathy for what you are going through,” said the artist who does not reveal his name due to the secrecy of his work.
Bandit traveled with San Clemente photographer Tristan George to document the journey in film and video, with plans to release a documentary to show the devastating impacts of war, he said.
He said he had the idea to travel to the Ukraine shortly after the war started in early 2022, after seeing the cities being destroyed and countless lives lost.
He met a couple from Ukraine who came to San Clemente shortly after the start of the war, he said, and they connected him with another couple in Ukraine – the husband was high ranked in the ministry of defense for the Ukrainian military, he said.
That relationship allowed the artist and filmmaker to get through military checkpoints and into hard-to-access places when they arrived; many of the locations are still under strict curfew with air sirens blaring through the night.
“We worked with the government, in a sense,” Bandit said. “They were super open to it, they were very receptive.”
As they moved through the country, Bandit left behind his messages of hope through art.
One scene showed an Ukrainian soldier using the hammer from the Soviet Union emblem to hang the Ukrainian flag, illustrating the country’s independence, he said. Another painting depicted a tug-of-war scene with a Russian and Ukrainian soldier on a large slab of concrete. On an abandoned Russian tank, he created a large handprint in the country’s iconic yellow and blue…
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